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[Old Welsh Guy]

There is that magic word though 'shouldn't' I don't like risk exposure. I have seen Yahoo remove a set of sites from their index entirely because they were cross linked, and I have seen hundreds of sites remved for cloaking in Google. recently I have seen a sit remvoed from google for geo delivering content based on IP address.

Risk! THE watchword in business.
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[Mike Dempsey]

No one with a brain cross links to that extent.
It is quite easy to avoid google and yahoo penalties IF you know what you are doing.
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[Old Welsh Guy]

Forums are different beasts entirely.
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[Old Welsh Guy]

One thing I should point out there to make something clear to all. I am a 100% white hat SEO/SEM. I do not get involved in anything, and do not do hady techniques, not for fear of getting causght, but because I see there is no need to expose a business to risk in order to achieve something that you can achieve without risk.

Not looking to side track the topic, but does any one else feel that although cloaking is against the terms and conditions, it is ok to do it if you are carefull, or that cross linking is ok to do it if you are clever?

Mike please don't think I am having a go at you I am not, but it is obvious that you see the search engines as 'fair game'. Now In the case of your own business I say go ahead, but do you think it is fair to expose the business of a client to risk, and there is a risk, no matter how much people might tell you other wise.

Those of you who use methods that are against the terms & contidtions (T&C) of the search engines how do you handle that risk,? Are you up front with the client and tell them that twhat you are doing is a risk and that there is a chance of getting caught (which there is0 , or, do you be all cocky about it and say 'this is a really clever way of getting results, that is so cever they (search engines) can't work it out, so we will be safe!

OR Do you point blank say bugger all to the client and put risk on their business without telling them? As it should not concern them, they are paying you to get results and how youget them is not their concern. As was the case with Traffic Power who recently had the bulk of their clients banned from Google. (Traffic power BTW were a company turning over Millions of dollars a yer, not a one man band)

I am interested to know what you all have to say, If anything
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[TheHeroinesHandbag]

As a one time consumer and future consumer of this type of services I would say I prefer your method OWG. I don't care that it can be done, if it's not supposed to be then it shouldn't be done. I wouldn't want you to put my business at risk, no matter how slight.
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[aaron]

I second OWG's method. However, I also think it's OK to take slight risks with a client's site, provided those risks are fully explained. Running a business is all about taking risks. If you hire a new member of staff, you are to some degree taking a risk. If you invest in new equipment, you're possibly again taking a risk. Any SEO work is a risk because you can never be totally sure of its results, but so long as we take calculated and well-informed risks, we are invariably going to be OK. That said, I'd sooner be following a path of purity than trying to trick the search engines with something that they're soon going to be on the case with (if they're not already).

Aaron
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[Mike Dempsey]

I believe in walking the line myself.
Dont do anything you can get reported for.

for example when it comes to on page optimisation I like having mouse over discriptions of links because you can put keyword rich discriptions in there.
its not the same as using hidden text and you cant get reported for it as you are using it for a valid use.

I dont use cloaking myself even though I have a very good cloak script thats a combo of IP based and user agent that scans for the word bot.

However I dont see the need to use it.

as for cross linking google clearly states that links to your site cannot affect you in a negative way

and targeting adds to create backlinks which i was originally talking about isnt really cloaking as the adds get targeted to the user anyway.;
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