What is cloaking

In simple terms for beginners

Affiliates, marketers, retailers of different levels, agency sales professionals and many other specialists constantly encounter a technique called cloaking in their activities. And an opinion is currently becoming popular that such a mechanism, basically, has long become outdated and is nowhere near as effective as it once was. Let’s see if these claims have any merit to them.

A little about the essence and history of cloaking

The essence of such a tool can be traced to its name — concealment, disguise. If we’re being blunt, this means camouflaging a landing page. The system identifies the type of person who clicked the link and, based on the information received, shows them one of the prepared pages.

Initially, the need for such a method appeared due to problems with SEO optimization. The old search algorithms of most systems (in particular, Google) were very demanding regarding the relevance of the query pages. They considered websites that were literally spammed with key requests the most suitable, and LSI did not exist at the time. The page code itself required a peculiar optimization, and it was not just about the text content itself. Accordingly, what the search bot considered a relevant page was literally unreadable for a human user.

Understanding the dilemma they were faced with, webmasters began to redirect search robots to one version of the page inundated with search queries, and actual visitors — to another. One that a search engine may not find as pertinent, but one that genuinely provides information, answers to questions and makes a pleasant impression on the human user.

The tool proved to be super efficient at the time of its creation. It began to be used everywhere. Over time, other methods of implementing cloaking have also been discovered, and not only in the field of search engine optimization. As you know, most advertising platforms have rather strict moderation, which is very aggressive towards gray-hat offers, not to mention black-hat ones. Therefore, it is almost impossible to display an ad on a search engine, social network or ad network if the target landing page arouses doubts. Approximately every 2nd vertical can be included in this group — almost the entire adult vertical and the dating and gambling ones, including official bookmakers and almost all drug products with unproven efficiency and safety.

Cloaking has proven to be a lifeline in this area as well. Only the specifics have changed a bit. The participants were common users, project moderators and bots. However, the system sends them not to optimized pages, but rather to white-hat versions of landing pages or even offers.

How cloaking works

The mechanism is already roughly clear. The moderator/bot is sent to one page while the client — to another. But how does the instrument identify who’s who? There are two ways to do this.

The first consists in using a user agent. The names of potential bots or project moderators are registered within the server, after which they are assigned specific pages (to which they are sent). The user, on the other hand, has a different agent name, so they do not fall under this peculiar block, they see the page’s actual content.

The second method involves using an IP address. The cloaking mechanism remains unchanged, except the server verifies not the agent names, but the IP addresses and also directs some visitors to fake pages, and others — to genuine ones.

The advantages and disadvantages of these methods are obvious. Obtaining the names of agents isn’t difficult, but getting access to databases of IP addresses is a much more serious task. On the other hand, the user-agent block is too ineffective, it is quite easy to forge a name. Therefore, this is a poor line of defense both against the mods themselves, who easily check the content for users, and against your competitors. After all, they can discover you’re using cloaking, and then report that info to moderators in order to eliminate an enemy, reduce the cost per click, and increase their potential audience. However, it is technically very difficult to forge an IP address.

Accordingly, professionals now use only IP address cloaking. More often it is a mixed type, in which the user agent, the IP address, the ISP, and the HTTP referer are used.

The main ways to use cloaking

Those who have not previously applied this method may not fully understand what prospects it opens up. So let’s dig a little deeper into the currently most popular use cases.

● showing users from different geographic areas different content. Basically, this is just a way to enhance user-experience, nothing criminal. Adapted are the language of the landing page, the marketing techniques and the content. Perhaps, you will use one set of arguments for Europeans and some other for residents of the US;

● blocking irrelevant users. Again, unwanted GEOs or users that have proxies. Naturally, such traffic converts poorly, so blocking it makes sense;

● blocking bots. This point does not even need an explanation;

● bypassing the rules of the site. Each platform has its own rules, some are tougher, others are more permissive. Changing the page mods see through cloaking implies showing the same content, just tweaked a little, i.e. more decent, with less aggressive adverts, and so on. But the offer essentially remains the same;

● circumventing fundamental rules or the law. In other words, when promoting goods or services that are basically prohibited by law or just blocked by the site. In this case, everything is hidden, the landing page, the offer, sometimes even the vertical itself.

Effectiveness and ethics of cloaking

Back to the original question: is cloaking currently effective? The answer is yes. The other question is: is it as effective as it used to be? The answer is no.

Large sites have learned how to effectively deal with violators by very quickly identifying them. On average, cloaking will help last up to 3–4 billing, no longer. After that the service will inevitably block the advertiser. The constant arms race between cloaking software developers and ad platform moderators is as relevant as ever. But the method will never achieve its former efficiency levels.

But is it ethical in general to use such a method? The question is philosophical.

In my humble opinion, no. After all, it’s basically lying to your own partner (the advertising platform, in this case). This is the falsification of content, and you are misleading your client. And business must be conducted honestly.

At the same time, many will disagree with my opinion, because there are a lot of niches that are prohibited on almost all popular platforms. If a person specializes in one like that, they often simply have no other choice. Yes, almost every vertical has its own niche resources: including adult, gambling or nutra, but their effectiveness pales in comparison to the industry giants.

Best cloaking services

Since cloaking also provides quite legal, white-hat opportunities for increasing the effectiveness of affiliate marketing, there are plenty of popular services. But here I will provide only a brief description of three tools. You can see a full review with all the nuances here — https://blog.leadbit.com/affiliate-cloaking.

IM KLO

The service has its own large database of IP addresses, which includes not only bots or moderators, but also groups of visitors. Multi-filtering by a wide range of items is used. No monthly subscription, the tool is purchased once and forever. And with all these advantages, there is only one drawback — this software is applicable exclusively to Facebook. The cloaking just won’t work on other platforms.

Cloak IT

Now this is a cloud service that does not require any manipulations other than the user registering in it. You log in, access the profile, and you can start working. Its IP address base is not the largest (even for this list), but it boasts excellent built-in protection against bots or users using VPN. It is purchased as a paid subscription, taking into account the number of advertising campaigns, or for permanent use, whatever you find preferrable.

BHOLE.SPACE

A service that despite quite adequate capabilities (a good IP address base only for FB, several filter options, bots-blocks) has a relatively low cost. The subscription costs only $25 per month while allowing to work with 35 advertising campaigns at once. In comparison, in alternative services, working with 1 AC costs up to $60.

Let’s summarize

Well, looks like we covered all the points. We found out that cloaking has the right to continue to exist today, but it will no longer remain the incredibly popular tool it once was. As for the validity for its use, everyone decides for themselves whether to apply cloaking for white-hat or black-hat promotion. Personally, I recommend sticking with white-hat or, in extreme cases, gray-hat methods.