Cloaking vs layering

[MEF]

Hi, I am new to the forum and I would first like to say that this discussion group is so valuable to someone like me who is new in the web developing/marketing field. Often, a term may have many different meanings to different Web developers/marketers. I am dealing with a Web development company who insists that layering is more effective then doorway pages. First, is "layering" the same as "cloaking" AND any thoughts on what you have found to be more effective.
Thanks!

[littleman]

Hi, welcome,
Are they referring to CSS? There is an art to making optimized pages that look good using css, unfortunately I know nothing about this approach. I use cloaking and am too lazy to learn the css techniques when it is very easy to make an engine specific page and cloak it.

Cloaking is giving specific pages for specific requests. So if an SE comes in you give it a page that it will like, but if a surfer comes in then you give him/her a normal page.

[MEF]

thank you for your reply.

[NFFC]

As regards the layering maybe you mean something like this demo [searchengineworld.co.uk].

As littleman say's, there is no comparison with cloaking.

[seth_wilde]

The only problem that I've found with layers is the compatibility issue. They won't work on browsers less than 4.0, and still have some minor problems with the advanced features when using early 4.* browsers.

Depending on the nature of your site this may or may not be an issue. Other than that I'm seeing some great results on pages using layers. (it's great for flash sites)