How not to grab the ban in search engines: dynamic content against cloaking

The era of personalization has arrived on the Internet. Online stores monitor behavioral factors and recommend specific products to a specific customer; The content of landing pages varies depending on the request and even search engines make personalized output.
At the same time, wild passions flare up around the technology of personalization in RuNet. We regularly receive accusations that dynamic content is cloaking. Where is the truth?


What's the matter
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To begin with, let's remember the materiel: cloaking (from the English cloak - mask, cover) is that the user and the search robots on the same page are given different information.
It was created to artificially influence search results. A few years ago, the ranking factors of Yandex and Google were far from humanity. Optimized by all the rules, the page resembled a vinaigrette of keywords.

A familiar situation: the site in the TOP-1, seo-shniki rub their hands, business owners jump for joy, and a potential client cannot read all this without tears. As a result, some webmasters came up with an ingenious thing: “but let's show the text filled with keywords by the robots, and the human-oriented version to the user”.

To distinguish between robots and visitors, IP addresses or User Agent are checked. On the technical side, everything is quite complicated, plus the names of search robots and a database with IP addresses are required.

It turned out that “the game is worth the candle” - the site is being promoted, users love it for “proximity to the people”, if this is a commercial subject - the conversion increases, respectively, sales.
However, in reality, not everything is so rosy: the method is more used for manipulations in pursuit of traffic.

For example, a user is looking for free music tracks, and he is being transferred to an online store with discs. About porn sites modestly silent: that's where search spammers cleared up in full)
In such cases, content for search engines may be 100% different from content for users.

Legal cloaking

Yandex & Google have announced strict penalties for cloaking, from pessimization to ban. Given that they themselves use its elements. How so? But first, a screenshot from Yandex Help, where cloaking and similar doorway technology are among the honorary leaders of the forbidden methods:



Yandex and Mail.ru by IP address take into account the user's location and show him local widgets (city map, weather, traffic jams, news). For Moscow, one thing, for Perm, another, Vladivostok, the third: the simplest example called geotargeting. Google makes a redirect (redirects) to the regional version when you go to google.com. Nobody is against this approach, because it is convenient: the user automatically finds himself in a “native” environment.

The next example of legal cloaking is product recommendations in online stores. Amazon first mastered it back in 2005. Let's say you looked at a children's backpack (product card). When returning to the main page or when moving to other categories, see the block “Recommendations related to what you watched” at the end of the page:



If the visitor did not buy one thing, the store offers something similar from the range. Chances for sale increase significantly. According to Amazon marketers, they earn up to 20% of annual revenue on product recommendations and upsells (before-sales to the main order).

Next is call tracking when a specific phone number is shown for a specific request. Number substitution occurs automatically. The site owners see from which request the lead came, which allows to make detailed analytics.

According to the cloaking principle, a / b testing systems also work - one page for search engines, and for users the traffic is divided equally with the original and test versions (with a different header, for example). As a result, one part sees option A, the second - option B. Analyze the effectiveness of the page and affect the conversion is possible only with the help of a / b tests.

Finally, the method that causes the most fierce debate. It's about dynamic content. We use it in the Yagla conversion increase system.

Dynamic content vs. cloaking

The essence of technology is the substitution of a part of the landing page content for users' requests from contextual advertising.
Recall that in 99% of cases all keywords lead to the same page (primarily in the case of one-page pages). Given that different users have different motives and selection criteria. For some, the manufacturer is important, someone is looking at the price, on credit, under the terms of delivery and so on.

Even greater variation in services. An example of one of our clients is a wedding agency. Here are just basic needs: people are looking for a toastmaster, a restaurant, and organizing a turnkey holiday. The agency provides all these services, the traffic is “driven” to one landing page.
Yes, you can “get stuck” and make three pages, but this step will not cover the whole mass of requests, all needs. And if the business has twenty types of services?

In this article, we show the work of dynamic content in the wholesale supply niche: How to sell 10,000 products on one landing page

More clearly look at the example of the Landing workshop. This is the original version:



And this is a variant of the header for the query "replacement of the fuel filter":



Can you imagine what range of services at the auto repair shop? Only the main categories - 29, without deepening by brand. Plus dopraboty (installation of alarms, DVRs, etc.) A lot of possibilities for hypersegmentation. The user goes through the ad and does not dig into the list of works, and immediately sees what he needs.

Yes, the site owner synchronizes the advertising campaign with Yagla, he specifies the substitutable elements in the editor and enters, for example, new variants of headings for each group of requests. Either captions to lead forms, CTA buttons, images on the first screen.
Conversion increase occurs due to personalization of the offer (offer). Business offers a person exactly what he is looking for.

In short, how it works and what gives a business dynamic content.

Important point : substitutions occur only on requests from the context. Organic traffic do not touch.

Position "against"

Claims are reduced to the fact that we give different content to users and robots (see the first part of the definition of Yandex in the top screenshot). And the search engine algorithm is difficult to distinguish a site with dynamic content from spamming fraud in order to influence the issue.

Position "for"

The most interesting thing is that Yandex and Google calmly perceive dynamic content when it works as part of personalization. Theoretically, of course, the site owner can radically change the content of the page. BUT it is already on his conscience and has no relation to the task of the service.

A few months ago, we asked a question about the fear of falling into the category of cloaking to the Yandex support service and received the following answer: “If the landing page is relevant to the ad and key request, there will be no problems”.

According to authoritative Internet entrepreneur Michael Campbell, the consequences depend on the purpose for which the technology is used. But the words of his colleague John Hurd: “Troubles can be expected only when trying to mislead the visitor. When you create a page that is as relevant as possible to the query, you are helping both the visitor and the search engine. ”

Banned for deception and manipulation. Recall the second part of the definition of Yandex: "... in order to influence the ranking in the search engine."
Given the personalization strategy, especially with Google, this is the worst crime. Therefore, cloaking is so cruelly punished. But any improvement in user experience (user experience) by the same Google is only welcome. What we, in fact, strive for.

In conclusion, two expert opinions about existing concerns. They clearly dot the i.

Maxim Uvarov, K50 Service Development Director



Alexey Dovzhikov, founder of the eLama contextual advertising automation service,
Trinet Development Director



PS As you can see, the problematic itself has lost a bit of relevance due to serious changes in the concept
Internet advancement compared to the birth time of cloaking. Even for "old school" seo-optimizers.

If the topic is still tormenting, we will readily answer your questions in the comments.

With respect to you and your business, the founder of the service Yagla.ru Alexander Alimov