Cloaking is a black hat search engine optimization (SEO) technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different to that presented to the user's browser. This is done by delivering content based on the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of the user requesting the page. When a user is identified as a search engine spider, a server-side script delivers a different version of the web page, one that contains content not present on the visible page. The purpose of cloaking is to deceive search engines so they display the page when it would not otherwise be displayed.

As of 2006, better methods of accessibility, including progressive enhancement are available, so cloaking is not considered necessary by proponents of that method. Cloaking is often used as a spamdexing technique, to try to trick search engines into giving the relevant site a higher ranking; it can also be used to trick search engine users into visiting a site based on the search engine description which site turns out to have substantially different, or even pornographic content. For this reason, major search engines consider cloaking for deception to be a violation of their guidelines, and therefore, they delist sites when deceptive cloaking is reported.

Cloaking is a form of the doorway page technique.

A similar technique is also used on the Open Directory Project web directory. It differs in several ways from search engine cloaking:

  • It is intended to fool human editors, rather than computer search engine spiders.
  • The decision to cloak or not is often based upon the HTTP referrer, the user agent or the visitor's IP; but more advanced techniques can be also based upon the client's behaviour analysis after a few page requests: the raw quantity, the sorting of, and latency between subsequent HTTP requests sent to a website's pages, plus the presence of a check for robots.txt file, are some of the parameters in which search engines spiders differ heavily from a natural user behaviour. The referrer tells the URL of the page on which a user clicked a link to get to the page. Some cloakers will give the fake page to anyone who comes from a web directory website, since directory editors will usually examine sites by clicking on links that appear on a directory web page. Other cloakers give the fake page to everyone except those coming from a major search engine; this makes it harder to detect cloaking, while not costing them many visitors, since most people find websites by using a search engine.

From Wikipedia under the GNU Free Documentation License
Mon Jul 19 23:11:47 2010

Do socks have a cloaking device?
Q. I lost one while doing laundry tonight.
Asked by quillologist - Fri Oct 12 22:20:56 2007 - - 3 Answers - 0 Comments

A. there is a little man that lives in the dryer and steals them for fun.
Answered by Helga - Fri Oct 12 22:53:57 2007

I want to learn Klingon and buy a cloaking device that they use on their spaceships - Any ideas?
Q. Are you saying Cloaking Devices are not real. Well u learn something everyday on here. My my...
Asked by Sir Nickle Barsteward - Tue Feb 6 21:55:54 2007 - - 12 Answers - 0 Comments

A. tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'? Ta'ach djewie djook! Ugaa'ach sped'eckj slarn begu'uskl. HTH Charles
Answered by Charles - Tue Feb 6 22:27:54 2007

How do I open a .CLK file? I believe it has something to do with "cloaking" and a firewall?
Q. How do I open a .CLK file? I believe it has something to do with "cloaking" and a firewall?
Asked by robertgrumbles - Mon Jun 15 09:03:43 2009 - - 2 Answers - 0 Comments

A. If it has to do with your firewall you don't need to open it yourself if it needs to be modified your firewall control panel has all the tools to do that for you.
Answered by The GNU Guy - Mon Jun 15 09:15:48 2009

From Yahoo Answer Search: "Cloaking"
Mon Jun 7 18:09:32 2010

  • IP DeliveryIP Delivery
    ip-delivery.com
    Search engine personalization software designed to prevent web pages from being copied by cloaking actual source code.
  • KloakitKloakit
    kloakit.com
    Offers cloaking to protect your pages from theft, and to deliver optimized pages to search engines.
  • fantomas shadowSniper(TM) Cloakingfantomas shadowSniper(TM) Cloaking
    fantomaster.com
    cgi based cloaking program for unlimited number of gateway, stealth, or phantom pages for search engine optimization and page code protection.
Custom search only Cloaking sites:

Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a Site - Open Directory Project - Become an Editor
Wed Jul 28 12:08:24 2010
Secrets Bam should keep: US must stop effort to force Israel into nuclear talks - New York Daily News
nydailynews.com
Secrets Bam should keep: US must stop effort to force Israel into nuclear talks - New York Daily News
Mon, 24 May 2010 09:16:51 GMT+00:00
New York Daily News For almost half a century, the US has backed Israel in cloaking its nuclear capabilities in doubt. This strategic ambiguity has enhanced regional stability ...
Bridal Debate -- Would You Wear a Red Dress on Your Wedding Day? - Lemondrop (blog)
lemondrop.com
Bridal Debate -- Would You Wear a Red Dress on Your Wedding Day? - Lemondrop (blog)
Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:16:33 GMT+00:00
Lemondrop (blog) Add to that my habit of spilling wine and food on myself, of sitting down on dirty benches, and it quickly became obvious that cloaking myself in delicate ...
Uno de los creadores de Pocoyo, en el II Iniciador Ciudad Real - Mi Ciudad Real (blog)
miciudadreal.es
Uno de los creadores de Pocoyo, en el II Iniciador Ciudad Real - Mi Ciudad Real (blog)
Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:10:25 GMT+00:00
Mi Ciudad Real (blog) La asistencia es gratuita y los asistentes interesados pueden solicitar mas informacion a traves de cloaking o en el grupo Iniciador Ciudad Real en facebook ...

From Google News Search: "Cloaking"
Sat Jun 19 16:41:38 2010

seo cloaking jpg
semwisdom.com
seo cloaking jpg
488px x 498px | 47.00kB

[source page]

blackhat SEO technique yet some websites still do it Those of you who are doing it keep in mind that there s a good chance a competitor will report you if they notice you are doing this

Cloaking png
softwareforeducation.com
Cloaking png
579px x 564px | 11.10kB

[source page]

Cloak files ending with Leave this alone unless you wand to hide particular file types This screen shot shows you what your screen should look like 6 Design Notes Beginners can Ignore

57662 cloaking png
akademie.de
57662 cloaking png
564px x 654px | 22.30kB

[source page]

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From Yahoo Image Search: "Cloaking"
Fri Jun 18 23:16:57 2010

SEO Chat Forums Cloaking Technorati and PR
seodesignblog.com
SEO Chat Forums Cloaking Technorati and PR

seodesignonline

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:42:02 GM

Date: March 9th, 2010 02:39 AM noixglacee . Cloaking. Technorati and PR Post: I host my blog on Wordpress, and gotten over 100 Technorati tags. Would that hurt my website PR? Should I . cloak. the technorati tags? ...

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rumblinglankan.com
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Nishadha

Fri, 21 May 2010 15:09:49 GM

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internalseo.com
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admin

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 02:57:22 GM

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From Google Blog Search: "Cloaking"
Wed Jul 21 16:05:39 2010