Looks like Reddit is Cloaking out Sidebar Links

bartosimpsonio · Sep 11, 2020

Title says it all: It looks like Reddit is cloaking out sidebar links.

Can someone please check and confirm?

They seem to show users one version of the site and search engines see a different version without the links.

Technically this goes against search engine rules.

By the way, been noticing some aggressive SEO being done on Reddit. E.g. They changed all links to UGC literally days after Google announced UGC. They probably hired some agency.

I wonder what else they're cloaking in and out of different pages

Dark Sky · Sep 11, 2020

1 day after I bought 4 reddit sidebar links, cant you be faster barto????

kvvni · Sep 11, 2020

When I see a young simpson I know a google update is coming. Thank goodness not this time.

thescrrr · Sep 11, 2020

They are fine in my subreddits.

Mr Positive · Sep 11, 2020

Dark Sky said:
1 day after I bought 4 reddit sidebar links, cant you be faster barto????

he’s slow thatwhy DD fired him from reporting google updates Jobs. Ps haven’t seen this but I’ll tag @Dr. Reddit whos niche is Reddit maybe he might have seen this

digitalgeckos · Sep 11, 2020

If I was you, I report to my superiors at Google mate, maybe you get a pay rise, you never know.

Mr Positive · Sep 11, 2020

Meddie said:
If I was you, I report to my superiors at Google mate, maybe you get a pay rise, you never know.

what do you think he’s doing building evidence from here, and waiting to file his report if Reddit traffic drops you know why to blame

bartosimpsonio · Sep 11, 2020

Dark Sky said:
1 day after I bought 4 reddit sidebar links, cant you be faster barto????

I bet they found out the link selling was getting out of hand?

thescrrr said:
They are fine in my subreddits.

You sure? How did you check?

I checked like 10 phone and gadget related subs and they're all indexed without the links part of the sidebar.

Meddie said:
If I was you, I report to my superiors at Google mate, maybe you get a pay rise, you never know.

Good thinking. Working on that right now.

thescrrr · Sep 11, 2020

bartosimpsonio said:
It looks like Reddit is cloaking out sidebar links.

I just checked them via inspect element and I didn't find any cloaking. The links are still do-follow. But maybe I misunderstood your question.

alonelywriter · Sep 11, 2020

No they don't. It is their cache version sometimes that don't show the sidebar.
It isn't reddit which is doing it but the Google. I think it is due to that saving mbs thing of them to show only the important data that they sometime skip the flash which is the sidebar.

bartosimpsonio · Sep 11, 2020

thescrrr said:
I just checked them via inspect element and I didn't find any cloaking. The links are still do-follow. But maybe I misunderstood your question.

Check the search engine cache.

bartosimpsonio · Sep 11, 2020

alonelywriter said:
No they don't. It is their cache version sometimes that don't show the sidebar.
It isn't reddit which is doing it but the Google. I think it is due to that saving mbs thing of them to show only the important data that they sometime skip the flash which is the sidebar.

Just the links sidebar? Check again, it's nowhere in the cache source code that I can see.

alonelywriter · Sep 11, 2020

bartosimpsonio said:
Just the links sidebar? Check again, it's nowhere in the cache source code that I can see.

I know because they are saving the mbs the google bot isn't scanning the sidebar part. What i suggest you to do is don't check the cache version of your post in the subreddit but check the subreddit itself.

I just checked and my sidebar is showing.

praetserge · Sep 11, 2020

bartosimpsonio said:
Title says it all: It looks like Reddit is cloaking out sidebar links.

Can someone please check and confirm?

They seem to show users one version of the site and search engines see a different version without the links.

Technically this goes against search engine rules.

By the way, been noticing some aggressive SEO being done on Reddit. E.g. They changed all links to UGC literally days after Google announced UGC. They probably hired some agency.

I wonder what else they're cloaking in and out of different pages

I said it back in May - https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/reddit-and-google-index-question.1229258/
But now I checked and it looks like sidebar links are in cache of both bing and google

bartosimpsonio · Sep 11, 2020

alonelywriter said:
I know because they are saving the mbs the google bot isn't scanning the sidebar part. What i suggest you to do is don't check the cache version of your post in the subreddit but check the subreddit itself.

I just checked and my sidebar is showing.

I think you're missing the point?

That's exactly what we're talking about here. It shows on the live site but not google's index.

praetserge said:
I said it back in May - https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/reddit-and-google-index-question.1229258/
But now I checked and it looks like sidebar links are in cache of both bing and google

You nailed it. Hadn't seen your thread.

alonelywriter · Sep 11, 2020

bartosimpsonio said:
I think you're missing the point?

That's exactly what we're talking about here. It shows on the live site but not google's index.

Ahh. you said its the reddit thats doing it but it is not reddit but google bot which is ignoring in some cases not in all the cases of subreddit but very few..

sabhan · Sep 11, 2020

I have my Reddit links indexed in gsc and when I use inspect element, they are ********.
I don't think Reddit will do the mistake of misguiding search engine bots

bartosimpsonio · Sep 11, 2020

alonelywriter said:
Ahh. you said its the reddit thats doing it but it is not reddit but google bot which is ignoring in some cases not in all the cases of subreddit but very few..

Googlebot doesn't modify the crawled content.

It's Reddit. Unless I'm missing something major here.

rafark · Sep 11, 2020

Just checked it. doesn't seem like they're cloaking them.

Azaan · Sep 11, 2020

I've had a look and it doesn't seem like it.

However, they are cracking down on links lately and have put several measures to ensure that links can't be built as easily as they could before.

I've checked links I've built previously and everything looks fine, but I'll be following this thread in case there are more developments

Looks like Reddit is Cloaking out Sidebar Links

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