Examples of cloaking
- Serving a keyword-rich page to Googlebot but a different page, such as a sales or spam page, to visitors
- Showing text or links only when the user agent or IP address belongs to a search engine
- Sneaky redirects that send visitors, but not crawlers, somewhere else
- Hacked sites where attackers show spam only to search engines, so the owner doesn’t notice
What isn’t cloaking
Adapting content for users is fine, as long as search engines see what users in the same situation see:
- Different layouts for mobile and desktop
- Content in the visitor’s language, or with local prices
- Paywalls and gated content marked up with Google’s paywalled content structured data
- Prerendering that gives crawlers the same content as users
How to check your site
Use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console to see a page as Googlebot sees it, and compare it with what visitors get. If you find content you didn’t add, check the Security issues report and look for signs of hacking.
Cloaking example
A site shows Googlebot a long article about “cheap flights”, but real visitors who click the result land on a page selling something else. A competitor reports it, and the site receives a manual action in Search Console. Its pages disappear from the results until the owner removes the cloaking and Google approves a reconsideration request.
How to check whether your site is cloaking by accident
- Use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to see the page as Google sees it.
- Compare it with what you see in a normal browser.
- Check scripts that change content based on location, device or login, and check that Googlebot gets the same content as a visitor from the same situation.
- Scan the site for hacks: spam pages that show only to search engines are a common sign of an attack.
Cloaking mistakes
- Hiding text or links for search engines “just to be safe”.
- Showing a login-only page to visitors and full text to crawlers without using the paywall markup that Google allows.
- Not noticing a hack because the site looks normal to the owner.
Cloaking FAQs
Is showing different content to different countries cloaking?
Not if Googlebot sees what users in the same situation see. For language versions, use hreflang.
What happens if I am caught?
Your pages can be demoted or removed. See manual actions, black hat SEO and the reconsideration request.