Google falls foul of Google

SEARCH OUTFIT Google has taken the unusual step of removing some of its own Web pages from its Web index because they break its rules on search optimisation method.
According to EWeek, search-engine watchers noted the appearance of so-called "cloaking" on a set of user support pages on Google's AdWords advertising. The pages displayed different title information to Google's Web crawler what the regular visitors would see.

According to the Threadwatch Weblog, a support page about an AdWords traffic-estimating tool had displayed a title to the Google crawler that included keywords such as "traffic estimator" and "traffic estimate" and ranked high in Google search results.

Cloaking is being used as a somewhat unsporting way of getting ranked igher in a search engine results and involves feeding keywords to crawlers rather than showing them what is on the page.

Google claims to be opposed to the practice and has said that it may permanently remove sites from its index that engage in cloaking.

Yesterday it seemed that the company may have put its money where its mouth is and pulled its pages.

A spokesGoogle said it had all been a terrible mishtake and that the additional keywords were only meant for the internal crawler serving Google's site search.

Source: The Inquirer