Why aren't my cloaked pages ranked in Hotbot and altavista

[halfmoon]

I have cloaked the main page of a clients website. The cloaked page is slightly different from the page the user sees--I took out tables ect. I am using inktomi and altavista's express submit service which updates my listing each week. I can see that my site is listed in their database by typing in the address, however, it is not ranking--I looked through 200 listings and could not see my site coming up. I am ranked very well in msn (number 4). Does anyone know what is going on???? Thanks in advance.

[Air]

Welcome to wmw halfmoon.

It may be that the pages are ranked but just very low. What I would suggest, if you really think that the cloaking is responsible, is to uncloak one of the pages and see if you suddenly rank better. With the fast turnaround of paid submit you only need a week or so to determine if the theory holds water.

There are so many cloaked sites in Ink and AV that I doubt cloaking is your problem, unless your cloaking is acting up and perhaphs you are not serving what you think you are to Ink and AV. It would be well worth it to doublecheck the set up.

[Vishal]

halfmoon,

Hi and welcome to WebmasterWorld - I am sure you will be able to learn and share a lot over here.

The cloaked page is slightly different from the page the user sees--I took out tables ect.

I am not sure for what reason you have cloaked your pages, but still I would like to say that, there is no magic in Cloaking, it can only hide the source code from all but few specified ip address and host names [I am assuming you are using ip based cloaking].

Any page that is ranked well at major search enignes will have to be well optimized - as and when required. In addition, if you have paid listing at AltaVista and Ink that won't help either, if your page is not optimized.

There are many threads over here about Themes and other stuff that can be very helpfull, I would recommend you to read them, it will surely help.

God Bless.

[halfmoon]

My page is VERY optimized (as per searchenginewatch,com) and is doing very well in MSN and Looksmart--in the top 10 for "Hawaii vacation rentals". I was wondering why it isn't ranking at all in hotbot or altavista. I search through 200 results and still could not find my site. I know the site is in their database because it comes up when I type in the URL.