Lesson learned - too much cloaking and a penalty

[cucma]

Hi there,
I got hit by Google recently. It could be for many reasons but it's most likely for using redirections e.g I was using websiteurl.com/go/keyword and these URL were plain redirections.

I discovered that G indexed many of these URLs. I deleted these subpages form G index. What else should I do? Reconsideration request or just wait?

Have any of you had similar problems? I must admit I was fool;/

 

[dujow]

What were they redirecting to? Affiliate landing pages?

 

[crazedspyker]

are you using pretty link plugin? I notice google are indexing my redirection urls too even though I put in code to tell google not to. I haven't received any penalty though.

 

[florflor]

I don't believe Google penalises for this. Many large authority sites do this, it's not black hat in any way.

 

[seorebel]

If these were just regular redirects, then this is not cloaking. Cloaking is showing different versions to SE's than to users..

 

[everest2012]

I'm not sure I understand. I didn't know you could use URL cloaking. There really is an ethical way to do it? I'm not really sure I understand the purpose of cloaking in general to tell you the truth.

 

[cucma]

If these were just regular redirects, then this is not cloaking. Cloaking is showing different versions to SE's than to users..

but G was indexed these urls which were plain redirects. It's not good. I was using GoCodes

 

[rickstar]

What exactly were you cloaking? The only way I see them penalizing you if you were trying to iframe adsense ads or illegal materials.

 

[blueguilt]

Maybe it wasn't the redirections that's causing you trouble.

 

[cucma]

Maybe it wasn't the redirections that's causing you trouble.

It could be. Anyway I did 301 and everything seems to be OK with new domain. Its strange

 

[venom217]

Surely we have to link cloak to protect our affiliate link commissions from hijackers?

The only time I've been Slapped is when it's directly against Terms of Service for serving up ads.

Admittedly it was my own fault - my default is to cloak, but the TOS expressly stated that I wasn't allowed to - so I just switched it off.

Anyone else having any problems?

 

[dowser]

Nope, I've been using it for years - still have affiliate links linked directly through gotrythis and I'm still getting the money, so obviously it's working

 

[Autumn]

Under some circumstances G will index the end target pages under your domain, rather than the domain they're actually from, eg. you have a 301 redirect that goes

yourdomain.com/go/affiliate1.php > affiliatesite.com/somepage.php

but G will then mistakenly index that as

yourdomain.com/somepage.php, even though affiliatesite.com/somepage.php already exists in the index.

If that is what's happening, it's probably a fault at G's end because a basic 301 is pretty difficult to fuck up.

Personally I believe that this can cause a dupe content penalty, or perhaps a thin content penalty - in any case I have seen sites take a hit when this has happened. These days I used a slightly modified version of CPA Redirector 2 for my affiliate links which stops the bots from following through to the end target page, so it's no longer an issue for me.

 

[Nakama]

Under some circumstances G will index the end target pages under your domain, rather than the domain they're actually from, eg. you have a 301 redirect that goes

yourdomain.com/go/affiliate1.php > affiliatesite.com/somepage.php

but G will then mistakenly index that as

yourdomain.com/somepage.php, even though affiliatesite.com/somepage.php already exists in the index.

If that is what's happening, it's probably a fault at G's end because a basic 301 is pretty difficult to fuck up.

Autumn, I have a few Amazon sites with the Pretty Link plugin (rewritten/shortened affiliate links and then redirected via 301) where when I type site:moneysite.com I do see that Google indexed moneysite.com/the-amazon-page-indexed like you explained above. A few sites seems penalized because of this.

However, at the same time I have plenty of sites where I see the same thing i.e. moneysite.com/the-amazon-page-indexed but they all have #1 rankings.

So I am now very confused. Does it mean Google sometimes penalizes when it shouldn't and sometimes not? If yes, what can be done please? Take out the affiliate links, built new links, wait for top rankings and then put the affiliate links again? Or something else easier than what you are doing now for non coders like me?

Thanks in advance!

 

[max1234567]

Personally I believe that this can cause a dupe content penalty, or perhaps a thin content penalty - in any case I have seen sites take a hit when this has happened. These days I used a slightly modified version of CPA Redirector 2 for my affiliate links which stops the bots from following through to the end target page, so it's no longer an issue for me.

copied content that is, i think so too

 

[Nakama]

It could be. Anyway I did 301 and everything seems to be OK with new domain. Its strange

May I know if you are still using the GoCodes affiliate link cloaking plugin? I guess not so what do you do now to well cloak your aff links please?

I have the same issue as you did for some of my domains. I am using Pretty Link WP plugin instead (use of simple 301 redirects) but the problem you had is exactly the same.

I think Autumn is right, the indexing of affiliate landing pages under our own domain (googlebot error) could have created a dupe/thin content penalty.

 

[Nakama]

are you using pretty link plugin? I notice google are indexing my redirection urls too even though I put in code to tell google not to. I haven't received any penalty though.

I am also using the Pretty Link plugin and same as you Google is indexing the affiliate landing page under my own domain. Since you wrote you were not under any penalty that may have been caused by this indexing error, I am confused now.

Autumn wrote that sites have taken a hit when this happened. I guess this is not systematic but for me it seems yes. Got to check all my domains now.