Active Cloaking

Not that I am, will, want to, or suggest it

[mdharrold]

Let me preface this by saying that this was an idea that hit me while driving today and I am not going to try or suggest anyone else tries it. I only want to know if this is possible.

Write a cloaking script that when a spider visits, the script searches the proper SE and retrieves the top two or three non-paid listings. Combines the listings into a single page and serves it up as your page.

Is this possible or would it be too slow or too something else?

I am aware it would be illegal and I am not, will not suggesting that anyone tries it.

[Air]

It is absolutely possible, and if a nice caching system is built in so that subsequent requests for the same pages are retrieved locally (maybe rechecking remote listings every x number of times to refresh the local cache) it can be pretty responsive too.

All moot though, as you said, unethical and gross copyright violation ...

[volatilegx]

Don't do it. Here's why:

1) It's illegal, unethical, and bad karma.

2) Many of the top rankings are cloaked, and the text your cloaking script pulled from the various top ranked websites would be the version meant for surfers, not spiders.

[Air]

right on volatilegx, #1 should be stressed, although, you realize the other forum devotees not partial to cloaking will not understand how that statement can be made in the cloaking forum .... they just need to hang around here more:)

[mdharrold]

>>1) It's illegal, unethical, and bad karma.

I am not going to try it, just curious if it would work. And destruction to my karma is always a deterrent.

>>2) Many of the top rankings are cloaked,...

I thought of that today too.

[volatilegx]

Don't get me wrong, now... I am a proponent of cloaking for the right reasons. Using cloaking techniques to violate others' copyrights is a blatant misuse of the technology, though. Like any technology, cloaking can be used for either good or evil.

[circuitjump]

The Force of Cloaking.