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Digital Specialist at AstraZeneca UK
23 August 2012 15:59pm
Hi, we were averaging around 100 referrals a day from Google however for the last few weeks this has dropped to around 10 per day! The only thing I can assume has caused this is cloaking (sort of). Let me explain.
We have 100's of pages on the site that require registration to view. This is not because the content itself is special but because we can only LEGALLY show the content to users in a certain profession and therefore need to validate them first. However, we would still like potential users to find the content via Google and the pages are very keyword rich. Therefore we allow Google to by pass the registration and index the content. I guess this is classed as cloaking but is it likely to be the reason for the sudden drop in referrals and SERP ranking?
If so, can anyone suggest a way around this? Thanks.
28 August 2012 22:13pm
Hi Steve,
I can ask one of my technical SEO team to have a look at the problem and suggest some work around solutions.
Because of your legal compliance requirement for hidden content It maybe that you have accidentally triggered a penalisation which Google has implemented as a result of G interpreting this as a cloaking work around.
If you have some contact details I can come back to you over by the weekend, email me on on or you can call on 07989 985922.
Regards
David Reilly
Director at Browser Media
14 September 2012 12:08pm
Steve,
It may well be what you have suggested but have you received any warnings in Webmaster Tools as it may well be something entirely different?
Have you vanished entirely for all keywords or is it just a few that have slipped?
It is very difficult to judge without knowing more about the specific site and any SEO activity that you may have been working on.
I don't know if you are able to share any more information on this forum but please feel free to get in touch if you are struggling as we would be very happy to have a more detailed look (David is one of the good guys though so will do a good job!).
Best regards,
Joe