What Has Worked Best for You in the Long Run?

I've been reading different opinions on cloaking and automated content, and it seems there's no one-size-fits-all approach.
For those who've tested different strategies, what has given you the most consistent long-term results, and what would you avoid doing again?

Topical clusters and outlines generated by AI, and then writing the actual content with heavy human edit for UX and search intent, gives the most consistent long-term results. If you cloak, only use it for **geo-targeting or device optimization** – never to feed bots different content than users, because the algorithmic footprint *will* catch up to you.
**What not to do:** programmatic AI content spam without manual curation, and aggressive affiliate link cloaking on tier-1 pages. It’s a straight path to a manual penalty.

From what I’ve tested, the most consistent results came from a mixed approach. Automation helps a lot for scaling, but adding a layer of manual quality check keeps things stable long term.