{"id":3280,"date":"2008-06-27T05:35:59","date_gmt":"2008-06-27T12:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=3280"},"modified":"2008-06-27T06:36:14","modified_gmt":"2008-06-27T13:36:14","slug":"cloaking-is-against-googles-tos-trulia-and-other-ses-as-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3280\/cloaking-is-against-googles-tos-trulia-and-other-ses-as-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloaking is Against Google’s TOS, Trulia. (And other SE’s as well)"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is CLOAKING?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here is Wikipedia’s Definition.<\/a><\/p>\n

Simply put, it is the practice of showing one thing to a user and another thing to the search engine spiders. It violates the BASIC trust that MUST exist IMO between the search engines and webmasters in order for there to be umm…order. They need to know that you are not doing a sleight of hand.<\/p>\n

In Search Engine Optimization, there are few things that almost all of the search engines treat alike. Even things like no follow links are handled differently (at this point in time) depending on which search engine is involved. But they all cry “foul” when it comes to purposely sending their spiders one thing and users another.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why do I bring this up? Because Eric Bramlett just dropped a video bombshell on Trulia.<\/a><\/strong> (Fair warning, the video takes a while to load and may not explain easily to the typical viewer what is happening, so I will do some play by play…).<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Bramlett has now added a post with STILL photos as well to explain.<\/a><\/p>\n

Scene 1:<\/strong> Trulia has “partners” at the Seattle Weekly<\/a> and Parade Magazine. Bramlett visits them as a normal viewer online would. The link takes him to a subdomain shared between the “partners”<\/a> (just using the Seattle Weekly example here).<\/p>\n

Scene 2:<\/strong> Bramlett then switches over to a tool we SEO types use to look at the same link AS IF WE WERE A GOOGLE SPIDER. When he does this and clicks the same link…<\/p>\n

Scene 3:<\/strong> He goes to a completely DIFFERENT page, one that gives links DIRECTLY to Trulia and NOT to their “partners”<\/a>. Yes, folks that IS the page that they are promoting to the TOP of Google for the keyword Seattle Real Estate! (My guess is that they are doing this to THESE partners the same way they do it to their REALTOR partners? That is the only explanation that I can come up with….)<\/p>\n

Eric Bramlett’s video evidence has what they are doing. They are caught red-handed. Plain and simple in my opinion.<\/p>\n

A word of advice to Trulia:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) As you rise to try and compete with REALTORS nationwide Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is CLOAKING? Here is Wikipedia’s Definition. Simply put, it is the practice of showing one thing to a user and another thing to the search engine spiders. It violates the BASIC trust that MUST exist IMO between the search engines and webmasters in order for there to be umm…order. They need to know that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-dirty-laundry","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8560,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8560\/trulia-a-search-engine\/","url_meta":{"origin":3280,"position":0},"title":"Trulia – A search engine?","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"May 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Quote from Rudy Bachraty on REBarCamp Denver's announcement that he will be speaking there: (my emphasis added) \"Trulia is a real estate search engine and online community where you can find homes for sale and detailed local real estate information.\" This is the second time in recent days that I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3101,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3101\/trulia-widgets-a-deeper-look\/","url_meta":{"origin":3280,"position":1},"title":"Trulia Widgets — a deeper look","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"May 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Why would Eric Bramlett post something like this? Or this? The debate rolls on as to Trulia Widgets and their use as a linkbaiting scheme. They are writing these things because they matter. But it has been said that they don't matter, that Trulia would still be climbing in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2983,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2983\/truliamazing-tricks-of-the-trade-dont-link-to-your-trusted-partners\/","url_meta":{"origin":3280,"position":2},"title":"Truliamazing tricks of the trade: don’t link to your trusted partners","author":"Galen Ward","date":"April 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Greg is impressed how Trulia so dominates the search results for \"714 West Culver Street\". Heck - they got the listing from somewhere, right? Why does Trulia show up above the original sources of data? In this case, two reasons: the original source doesn't even display the address on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3062,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3062\/trulia-widgets-truliamazing-trojan-horses\/","url_meta":{"origin":3280,"position":3},"title":"Trulia Widgets: Truliamazing Trojan Horse(s)","author":"Eric Bramlett","date":"May 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Much ado about Galen Ward's Truliamazing Tricks of the Trade! Greg has already written a fantastic post about the reaction, so I won't spend any time rehashing. An interesting side note that has been brought up by a few commentators is why Trulia is really kicking butt in the SERPs.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3116,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3116\/mike-wallace-interviews-number1expert-and-trulia\/","url_meta":{"origin":3280,"position":4},"title":"Mike Wallace interviews Number1Expert and Trulia?","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"May 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Things have been busy around here lately. This controversy over Trulia's widget baiting tactics rages on in the internet world. Now Sherry Chris has chimed in as well. (Kudos to you for entering the arena...others should follow). Bottomline is this: Trulia calls us partners. (REALTORS and them) Before someone calls\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1408,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1408\/is-truliacom-the-unzillow-realtybot-emerges-from-beta-with-a-new-qa-feature-and-robust-system-wide-automated-alerts\/","url_meta":{"origin":3280,"position":5},"title":"Is Trulia.com the UnZillow? Realty.bot emerges from beta with a new Q&A feature and robust, system-wide automated alerts","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Come with me to the newly-reconfigured Trulia.com, freshly emerged from beta status. Let's search for an ideal house. The criteria we can use are limited -- location, type of structure, price range, bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage -- but we can still scare up some results. Plus which, if you really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}