Serving different content based on the user agent is how cloaking happens, even by accident. I make sure Googlebot sees the same page a person does. Different content served to Googlebot vs users. Cloaking is a spam violation and can incur manual action; even unintentional UA-branching is risky.
Why does user-agent-based content differences (cloaking risk) matter for AI search?
Cloaking is a spam violation and can incur manual action; even unintentional UA-branching is risky.
How do you fix it?
Serve identical content to crawlers and users (unified rendering).
How do you find it on your site?
- Fetch the page as Googlebot, for example with URL Inspection or a user-agent switch, and compare it to the normal view.
- Look for content, links or redirects that differ by user agent.
- Remove any user-agent branching that changes the content.
- Use feature detection rather than user-agent sniffing where logic is needed.
Which ranking and citation factors does it touch?
Showing crawlers different content is a spam policy violation and can trigger a manual action. Parity protects both rankings and trust.
What is the impact?
Severe; penalty risk. Direct (spam policy).
What is the evidence?
Cloaking, different content to crawlers vs users, violates spam policies. Google Search Central, Spam policies for Google web search
Frequently asked questions about user-agent-based content differences (cloaking risk)
What does "User-agent-based content differences (cloaking risk)" mean?
Different content served to Googlebot vs users.
How do you fix user-agent-based content differences (cloaking risk)?
Serve identical content to crawlers and users (unified rendering).