Cloaking
01 Definition
Cloaking meaning: Cloaking shows search engines different content than human visitors see.
Cloaking is the practice of serving one version of a page to search engine crawlers and a different version to users, usually to manipulate rankings. Google treats it as a violation of its spam policies. Detected cloaking can lead to ranking drops or removal from search results.
Why it matters
How Cloaking fits the work
Understanding cloaking helps you avoid an obvious spam violation and confirm that crawlers and users receive the same content.
In context
A site detected Googlebot and served keyword-stuffed text while showing visitors a sparse page, a cloaking tactic that risks removal from search results.
Practical note
Serving adapted content by device or location is fine when crawlers and users see equivalent material. The line is crossed when the intent is to deceive search engines.