The Risks of Decloaking: Why Avoiding Caching Search Engines is Crucial

The Drawbacks of Displaying Cached Web Pages

Search engines that display cached web pages often justify this practice by claiming it provides users with quick access to a page's content. This supposedly makes it easier for users to determine if the page contains the information they're seeking. However, this practice primarily benefits the search engine by keeping users on their site, making them more susceptible to banner ads and other promotional tactics.

There are several issues associated with displaying cached web pages:

• The content may be outdated depending on the search engine's index cycle.
• The pages displayed may not be fully functional, with broken internal links, non-functioning JavaScript and Java applets, and incorrect or non-existent display of external Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
• Banner ads may not display correctly, depriving webmasters of potential revenue.
• Dynamic content may not render as originally intended.
• Displaying content in an unfamiliar context, such as under the search engine's header or within a frame, can be seen as a violation of intellectual property and copyright laws.

Decloaking Hazards

For websites that use IP delivery, displaying cached pages can pose a significant decloaking risk. Cloaking involves presenting an optimized page to search engine spiders that is not intended for human viewing. If these pages are cached and displayed, it can expose your cloaking efforts, rendering them ineffective. Unscrupulous competitors could potentially steal your cloaked code to optimize their own pages, leading to better rankings at your expense.

The Role of Google

Google is a notable example of a search engine that displays cached web pages. In the past, Google would comply with requests from webmasters not to display cached pages. However, Google introduced a proprietary meta tag (META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOARCHIVE") for webmasters to include in the header of pages they wish to exclude from this feature. While there were initial concerns that sites opting for this exclusion might be penalized ranking-wise, these fears seem to have subsided.

Other Search Engines

Other companies, such as Germany-based brainbot technologies AG, also offer search engine technology that displays cached results. French search engine AntiSearch and German search engine Speedfind also offer display of cached pages.

Conclusion

Given the potential issues associated with displaying cached web pages, it may be beneficial to block certain search engines from accessing your website. For a professional blocking solution, consider using fantomas multiBlocker.