Comments on: Questions for Google and Microsoft Webmaster Central Teams http://www.metamend.com/blog/2008/04/14/questions-for-google-and-microsoft-webmaster-central-teams/ Search engine and Website Marketing tips, information, news and opinion from Metamend's team of SEM and SEO experts. The Metamend Blog covers SEO, search engines, search trends, search engine optimization and marketing. Thu, 19 Aug 2010 01:58:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Kevin Osborne http://www.metamend.com/blog/2008/04/14/questions-for-google-and-microsoft-webmaster-central-teams/comment-page-1/#comment-51219 Kevin Osborne Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:04:54 +0000 http://www.metamend.com/blog/2008/04/14/questions-for-google-and-microsoft-webmaster-central-teams/#comment-51219 Would it be possible to add "Cloaking" under the "Content Analysis" section in google webmaster tools. When cloaking is discovered by google it would make more sense to warn webmasters of this issue so that they may fix it instead of removing their site from the index. A lot of webmasters are not even aware there is a cloaking issue and do not intend on doing anything malicious. Perhaps google could post a time limit for removal. Side note: Cloaking would only show up under content analysis when it is detected. Would it be possible to add “Cloaking” under the “Content Analysis” section in google webmaster tools. When cloaking is discovered by google it would make more sense to warn webmasters of this issue so that they may fix it instead of removing their site from the index. A lot of webmasters are not even aware there is a cloaking issue and do not intend on doing anything malicious. Perhaps google could post a time limit for removal.

Side note: Cloaking would only show up under content analysis when it is detected.

]]> By: Colin Cochrane http://www.metamend.com/blog/2008/04/14/questions-for-google-and-microsoft-webmaster-central-teams/comment-page-1/#comment-51198 Colin Cochrane Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:49:52 +0000 http://www.metamend.com/blog/2008/04/14/questions-for-google-and-microsoft-webmaster-central-teams/#comment-51198 I would be interested to know if the Live Search team has any firm stats supporting the continued use of the Live anti-cloaking bot. It is notorious for skewing search referral data, and doesn't appear to be having any noticeable effect on the quality of Live search results, so I'm assuming there is some metric that the Live Search team is using to justify the continued use of the bot. On a related note, it would be fairly easy to detect the anti-cloaking bot based on the highly generic single-phrase search terms that the bot uses to impersonate a normal searcher. Are there ancillary methods to the anti-cloaking bot being used to identify sites that are using cloaking methods? I would be interested to know if the Live Search team has any firm stats supporting the continued use of the Live anti-cloaking bot.

It is notorious for skewing search referral data, and doesn’t appear to be having any noticeable effect on the quality of Live search results, so I’m assuming there is some metric that the Live Search team is using to justify the continued use of the bot.

On a related note, it would be fairly easy to detect the anti-cloaking bot based on the highly generic single-phrase search terms that the bot uses to impersonate a normal searcher. Are there ancillary methods to the anti-cloaking bot being used to identify sites that are using cloaking methods?

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