Method of cloaking, anyone using this?

[georgiek50]

For a while now I have been considering serving up different ads based on user's search criteria. Since my site is visited by a 4-5 groups of people w/ completely different interests due to its theme, I thought it would be wise to cater to each visitor.

My question is, would I get nuked by the big G for this. I feel like it is very risky. Anyone else try this before?

[TomJ]

sounds sensible....although there are lines that should not be crossed ;-)

[georgiek50]

Care to elaborate? Also, would this be as simple as just working on the code to display the different ads or are there hidden secrets I need to look out for, specific IP's, etc., etc...

[volatilegx]

I don't think you need to bother with IP addresses in your case since you aren't selectively serving content based on the identity of the visitor, but rather based on the HTTP_REFERER header.

None of the major search engine spiders use the HTTP_REFERER header when making requests for pages, so they will see the same content every time.

I think the "line" TomJ was talking about is that you should keep the changes to a minimum. Only swap out the ads based on the HTTP_REFERER header, and don't swap out lots of content.

[georgiek50]

Great, makes sense. Thanks for the reply.