Cloaking: is it STILL worth it?

[nalf]

Hello everyone!
I was reading this post

[webmasterworld.com...]

and wonder if all those techniques are still working 1 year after? And is it worth it in 2004?

Thanks everyone for your opinions!

[volatilegx]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, nalf :)

I think it definitely is. I hear from people all the time who think it is.

Yes, Google is getting more aggressive in trying to detect cloaked domains... but new domains are cheap. Cloaking scripts make setting up a cloaked site easy, and getting rankings for the pages is a snap.

Especially since Yahoo switched to their own SERPS (via Inktomi), cloaked sites are doing really well.

[Jon12345]

How quickly does Google pick up on a cloaked domain nowadays? Within a couple of months? If so, will sandboxing play its part so that you can't get incoming links in time and your site is banned before you have a chance to get it to rank?

You say getting rankings for the pages is a snap. How do you do that before it is banned? Don't you need lots of incoming links with anchor?

What has your experience been with site size? Boost your rankings? I know its easy to create large sites with cloaking.

Jon

[volatilegx]

I can't personally give you an estimate on how long it takes to get a site banned. I've never had a domain banned for cloaking (although I have seen a few of my domains banned for other reasons).

Anybody else have data on this?

[dsmmg]

I've heard that it takes about a month or so from the time the pages start to rank (And get reported!) in hyper-competitive areas... Just something I've heard though. ;-)

[Jon12345]

How do they know they are cloaked and so can report them?

[volatilegx]

Jon,

Let's make that a new thread, so we can keep this one on topic.