Naive question? re: cloaking

creating many url/keyword/.html pages

[Ianh]

Hope this is not a stupid question. I have just downloaded a trial version of software which claims to "create 1000s of keyword targeted pages in minutes"

The software asks for input of chosen keywords, a paragraph description of your sites content and a directory or file you wish to save them to. It then produces a number of pages with addresses such as.

www.widgetco.co.uk/blue-widget.html
www.widgetco.co.uk/big-blue-widget.html
www.widgetco.co.uk/buy-blue-widget.html

It also produces a sitemap page which contains some brief text such as"Page for widget information widget help and deliveries in uk" Plus a link to each of the constructed pages. If a searcher or site visitor clicked on.

www.widgetco.co.uk/blue-widget.html. They would actually get.
www.widgetco.co.uk
as the viewable page.

Is this cloaking?
What do Google and other engines think of this?
Is it worthwhile? (the pages can rank quite highly)

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[edit_g]

Is this cloaking?

If it walks like a duck...

What do Google and other engines think of this?

The search engines don't like you to show different content to them than you do to your visitors. What you have to think about is, is your software good enough to stay under the radar; or, in other words, do you feel lucky, punk? ;)

Is it worthwhile? (the pages can rank quite highly)

It can be. Very worthwhile, as many here will attest. What you need is to make sure that you have the best software (or if you're doing it yourself, that you've got it right).

[dhatz]

This isn't cloaking (cloaking = showing a different version of your page to spiders than to your users) it's just search engine SPAMMING, ie filling SE dbs with machine-generated keyword-stuffed garbage.

Don't do it.

[edited by: dhatz at 1:22 pm (utc) on June 12, 2004]

[Sanenet]

Err... dhatz, cloaking is just another way of spamming.

Ianh - Try it on a different domain which has nothing to do with your main site. I don't know what software you're using, but if it's more than 6+ months old then it's probably obsolete - and from your description of what it does, it sounds dodgy.

I agree: "Do you feel lucky, punk?" is probably the best way to put it!

[Ianh]

Thanks for the replies guys,

I guessed it might be dodgy but hoped I could get away with it.

[volatilegx]

The basic technology behind cloaking hasn't changed much since it first came on the scene. I would disagree that if a program is more than six months old it's obsolete.

If a searcher or site visitor clicked on.

www.widgetco.co.uk/blue-widget.html. They would actually get.
www.widgetco.co.uk

From your description, it does sound like the pages are cloaked.

As long as you run this program from a separate domain (best if done on a different web host, too), you should be OK.

[edit_g]

Have to agree with volatilegx here - if it is more than six months old then you can, in some cases, get software that has evolved and improved over time. Which isn't a bad thing - you live and you learn, right?

I think what you need to watch out for is the IP lists being more than 6 months old - in which case you could find yourself in a whole heap of trouble... ;)

[Ianh]

Thanks again