Browser link cloaking? A little help please...

5 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Have a question and I hope this isn't confusing so thanks in advanced for your advice:
I would like to separate two sections on a page and put each on their own page. The first section is SEO content and the second is a tool user can interact with to get info. I know from looking at backlinks and comments the web community is linking to the page for the tool.
Is there a way or WP plugin that will allow me to cloak the link in the browser so if the user links the tool, the backlink they grab from the browser links to the SEO page? And if so, is this frowned on by search engines?
The SEO page is a pre-sale page so naturally I want this to rank. But I know if I separate the tool from the pre-sale page, future backlink juice gets tossed to the tool page.
Thanks!
#browser #cloaking #link
  • Profile picture of the author bonusdays
    I've read this 5 times and I'm still confused. I kinda... sorta... think I know what you mean but not really.

    For example: what does "I would like to separate two sections on a page and put each on their own page" mean. What does "section" mean.

    Give it another shot.
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    • Profile picture of the author JayGreen
      Ok, well a section is the article for example. Below the article is a tool (second section) I created for my users to use. I would like to put the tool on another web page by itself and link to it. If I put the tool on its own page, is there a way for the URL in the address browser bar to be the same as the page I removed the tool from? The whole point is to split the page up for faster loading times but I know users will link to the tool and not the article page. The article page would be better for me to rank as it presells the the tool.
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      • Profile picture of the author bonusdays
        OK. That's what I thought you meant but I wanted to be sure.

        Yes you can absolutely do this with an iframe.

        I've done something very similar on some of my blogs however I do have to warn you that I struggle with this a bit and would not consider myself a pro. So... that details I'll give you here are about as far as I can take you so you may have to dig into the code just a bit (nothing too scary) and peck around until you get it to work.

        Also... this won't prevent people from direct linking to the tool because they can look at the code on your page and find the URL that contains the tool. However, 99% of the people that see you page (using this method) will never even notice.

        If you are using WP, it is way easy.

        You need the plugin WWSGD (What Would Seth Godin Do) but you're going to use it a bit different than most people do.

        In keeping with my policy of giving credit where credit is due (when I can remember), I was shown how to do this by Peter Spaepen.

        The example will have you putting at the top of each post but once you dig around in the WWSGD plugin you will see options to put after posts, pages etc.


        Go to "Settings" > "WWSGD".

        Inside the "Message to New Visitors" paste in this code:

        <iframe align='center' frameborder='no' height='280px'
        scrolling='no' src='http://www.yourdomain.com/yourcooltool'; width='600px'
        ></iframe>
        <br/><br/><br/>
        <div style="border-bottom:1px solid #CCCCCC"></div>
        <br/>

        Where it says "http://www.yourdomain.com/yourcooltool" - change that to the (hidden)
        HTML page where your tool is.

        Where it says "Repetition" - set that to 5000. This way the
        action message will always show, no exceptions :-)
        NOTE: On the "Settings" > "WWSGD" - make sure to have
        "Location of Message" set to "Before Post" and "On Posts
        Only". If you want to display the iframe with the "Action
        Message" on some of your Pages as well, simply paste this
        code on the Page:

        !<?php wwsgd_the_message(); ?>

        IMPORTANT: For the!<?php wwsgd_the_message(); ?> code
        to work in your Pages - install the "PHP Execution" plug-in
        from the "Plugins" > "Add New" interface. There is no set up
        needed for PHP Execution - it works fresh out of the box.
        * You may not need this.

        This is a generic answer to your question. I hope you can see how this will work. And again, props to the master: Peter Spaepen for showing me this.

        I'm sure you will have to tweak everything just a bit to get what you want.

        Enjoy!
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  • Profile picture of the author pdhodges
    The short answer is yes, but it gets confusing. If your are self hosted here is a way to do it. Get a second domain on your host. Put Word press on it. Put the redirection plugin on it. Set up a redirection on that new domain that forwards only (not redirects) to where every you want it to go and will only accept the url of your original domain.

    So will be going from your original domain to the new domain and then getting forwarded back to a different spot on the original domain as a source.

    What will show up at the bottom left of your browser and the top bar is the url of the new domain you sent it to, not the url of where it gets forwarded. Since the second domain is redirecting the url, that url can be fictitious as long as it starts with the valid domain name.

    If you do all this, you will leave one domain, goto the second, get forwarded back to the first domain, and everything will be either masked or fictitious on the top and bottom of the browser.
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  • Profile picture of the author JayGreen
    Thanks, one final question. Is what I'm trying to do considered black hat at all? I don't want to get any slap.
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