Cloaking, Geo-Targeting, and IP Delivery
Clearly, despite the fact that certain uses of cloaking are becoming accepted, it
is still a risk, and it is likely that if you are caught by a search engine for
using cloaking for a purpose that it deems as spam, your site will be banned. Therefore,
if you are not an extremely popular site whose ban would elicit a public response,
and you’re not willing to take a risk, cloaking should be avoided
The Last 5 Site Visitors
| City | Region | Country | Code | Latitude | Longitude | Url | Eastern Time (US) |
| Mountain View | California | United States | US | 37.4192 | -122.057 |
Page
| 3/10/2010 12:25:32 PM |
| San Diego | California | United States | US | 32.9014 | -117.208 |
Page
| 3/10/2010 12:23:11 PM |
| Thornton | Pennsylvania | United States | US | 39.9087 | -75.5361 |
Page
| 3/10/2010 11:58:52 AM |
| Sunnyvale | California | United States | US | 37.4249 | -122.007 |
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| 3/10/2010 11:55:38 AM |
| Sunnyvale | California | United States | US | 37.4249 | -122.007 |
Page
| 3/10/2010 11:14:57 AM |
Cloaking
Cloaking is defined as the practice of providing different content to a search engine
spider than is provided to a human user. It is an extremely controversial technique
in the realm of search engine optimization. And like most things controversial,
cloaking can be used both constructively and destructively.
Geo-Targeting
Geo-targeting is a similar practice, but it provides different content to both spiders
and users on the basis of their respective geographical regions — and its use is
far less controversial. Both practices are typically implemented using a technology
called IP delivery
IP delivery
IP delivery is the practice of using the IP, the network address of the connecting
computer, whether robot or human, and sending different content based on that. A
database is used to assist with the process. In the case of cloaking, the database
stores the IP addresses of the various spiders that may hit your site. The cloaking
script implementation scans the list to see if the current IP is a spider, and the
programmer can use this information to effect changes in presentation or logic.
In the case of geo-targeting, the database stores various ranges of IP addresses,
and indicates where these ranges of IPs are in the world. A geo-targeting script
scans the list to see in which country the current IP is located, and the programmer
can use this value to effect changes in presentation or logic.