1.4 Rendering & JavaScript ✦CriticalVerified
Different content to crawler vs user (any mechanism)
By any mechanism, geolocation, cookies, headers or scripts, showing the crawler something different from the user is cloaking. I keep the crawler and user experience the same in substance.
What it is
Any divergence between crawler-served and user-served content.
Why it matters
Same cloaking exposure regardless of mechanism (IP, UA, headers).
How to fix it
Audit for any conditional serving; unify it.
How to find it on your site
- Compare the crawler-fetched page against the user-facing page across templates.
- Test from different locations and cookie states if your site personalises.
- Eliminate substantive differences between what crawlers and users receive.
- Where personalisation is needed, keep the core indexable content constant.
Cross-reference to ranking and citation factors
Content parity between crawler and user is a baseline trust requirement. Divergence risks a manual action that is hard to recover from.
Impact
Severe; penalty risk. Direct.
Evidence
Serving crawlers different content is cloaking. Google Search Central, Spam policies for Google web search