As many top search engine results are there by cloaking and have been
for a long time can you explain exactly what it is and how to do it
please? It works and it seems that search engines allow it to go on.
Many of my competitors have had top 10 positions by this method for
over two years now. I have patiently done my very best by normal
methods but I can't beat them so I may as well join them, if that's
what it takes, for the good of my business.

Whatever it is, this a new one on me and I am now dying to find out.

I think that 'Cloaking' is disguizing the referor's address when
requesting a web page
- typically used to prevent the target website know the address of a
page containing a link their site.

In this case it looks as if the referor's address is being diddled to
make it look as if loads of different sites point to one page, when it
is just one machine pounding out requests.

Cloaking is "used to describe a website that returns altered webpages
to search engines crawling the site. In other words, the webserver is
programmed to return different content to Google than it returns to
regular users, usually in an attempt to distort search engine
rankings. This can mislead users about what they'll find when they
click on a search result. To preserve the accuracy and quality of our
search results, Google may permanently ban from our index any sites or
site authors that engage in cloaking to distort their search
rankings."

(SOURCE: Google FAQ for Webmasters, <://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html>). 

I strongly advise against this kind of stupid tricks. If you think
that your competitors do that, you can always tattle on them to
Google.

That is really interesting
- a form of 'content by requester' setup
- like a cookie on the address/IP

I've only seen it used in the context of a Forum that provides links,
but really does not want the source of the link to turn up at the
target's webserver.

"I strongly advise against this kind of stupid tricks. If you think
that your competitors do that, you can always tattle on them to
Google."

I have, and 12 months later they are still top or very near of the Google results.

Only the Romulans can cloak.  The Federation does not have this
ability nor do the Klingons.  No one knows how the cloakig device
operates.  It is secret technology.

I hope this helps.

Klingons can cloak my friend. They may chose not to use the tech on
some of their newer ships becuase it may interfere with more advanced
propulsion systems.

Cloaking is;

"the act of hiding true page content from either a human or robot
visitor to a website. This technique is used to both camouflage actual
page content from page thieves and to artificially present a more
search engine friendly web site to visiting spiders. Cloaking is
considered an unacceptable practice by all of the major search engines
and can be justification for banning." - from
http://www.internet-reach.com/Glossary.htm

That having been said - top rankings in Google an other engines can be
achieved by cloaking. Also IP delivery software is becoming a viable
alternative that allows targetting of specific information in page
query returns. Ethically it's a matter of trust - if you're using it
to provide good information you should be in good shape - if you use
it to attract tons of unrelated traffic you may be banned.


DGM
http://www.internet-reach.com