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merriam-webster.com are doing some very funky detection based on Google referrals….

Posted in: General by Richard Hearne on February 9, 2014
Internet Marketing Ireland

merriam-webster.com are doing some very funky detection based on Google referrals. Visit a definition page, then a second (e.g. linked from first). You'll be prompted to sign-up. Now to go to Google and search for the word defined on the second page. Google will present a result from this domain it thinks has content, but in the same session that page will be a sign-up challenge without content.

This is quite certainly cloaking content, and it's very simple for a user to get a different page than that served to Googlebot. Naughty, and probably stupid too.

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2 Comments »

  1. Isn't that First Click Free?
    https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/74536?hl=en

    Comment by Pedro Dias — February 9, 2014 @ 4:14 pm

  2. First bit is. But they shouldn't be cloaking all subsequent clicks from
    Google results.

    Comment by Richard Hearne — February 9, 2014 @ 4:20 pm

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