Is vbulletin cloaking content for Google?

[I, Brian]

If you surf vBulletin using the useragent switcher in Firefox, you are presented with different information below the QuickReply box that isn't seen with IE or Firefox normally.

http://www.platinax.co.uk/blogs/bria...ulletin_c.html

Is there any reason for these areas being displayed to Google??

It would be great simply to avoid this even displaying, as it simply presents duplicate content for Google - though ironically the links are nofollowed in 3.5.

[Zachery]

What user agen't were you browsing with?

Probally because that useragent isn't on our allowed list of javascript cabable browsers...

Its not "cloaking" anything as you want to call it. depending on your useragent you are fed differnt options, if your browser is not capable of javascript, you get the javascriptless version of the template...

[Mike Sullivan]

Cloaking? Hardly. It's the same page that's displayed to any browser than can't handle the DHTML dropdowns or if you explicitly have the dropdowns disabled.

Look: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...=157642&nojs=1

[I, Brian]

The user-agent I was using was

Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)

Is this simply a case of you needing to update your useragent list?

As otherwise the extra sections deliver duplicate content links that could cause problems with search engines, regardless as to whether nofollow is applied in vB3.5 or not.

[conqsoft]

The Googlebot doesn't support JS, so it doesn't have access to the dropdown menus with those links, so they are displayed below the thread instead. (As with any browser that doesn't support them.)

There are no duplicate links. Simply turn off JS in FireFox and view this thread. At the top, where it has Thread Tools (for example), you click that and it jumps you to the bottom where the links are displayed.

What's the big deal?

[Wayne Luke]

Should be noted that your blog title is grammatically incorrect. It should be either "Is vBulletin Cloaking?" or "Are vBulletins Cloaking?".

Little more investigation would have told you no though. It isn't cloaking.

[Colin F]

You can achieve the same effect as a non-JS browser by appending &nojs=1 to the URL.

[I, Brian]

Little more investigation would have told you no though. It isn't cloaking.

So far as I understand it any form of user-agent delivery is a form of cloaking - cloaking is a method for providing different content on the basis of IP/user-agent delivery, which has both useful and abused applications. No big deal.

What was of particular concern in this instance isn't the method - I have the hybrid thread option turned off as I don't want search engines being filled with the pointless duplicate content that hybrid thread formats causes. And yet the Googlebot is being fed this duplicate content even when I've specified in my admin panel that I do not want this option available.

I had thought the javascripting of menu options was in part to try and address the issue of extensive duplicate content that vbulletin suffers from - so it was disappointing to see that instead that these links are being fed to Googlebot regardless.

[Colin F]

This functionality wasn't designed specifically because of google, but rather so that users that don't have JavaScript activated in there browsers have the same options and possibilities as users with JavaScript activated, as far as possible.

Also, be advised that even if Google we're server the same page you are now, with the dropdown menus, it would still spider the exact same links, as they're still in the code.
It's only a case of reorganizing the structure of the pages code.

[I, Brian]

Search engines traditionally do not like Javascripted links, so the JS menus aren't really a problem.

It may be an idea to remove the Display Modes section from the non-JSdisplay when hybrid versions are disallowed in the admin panel - Iguess that's something that was overlooked in the coding?

[Colin F]

Actually, if the Threaded / Hybrid modes are disabled in the vBulletin Options of your AdminCP, the appropriate menu is no tdisplayed...

[Wayne Luke]

Search engines traditionally do not like Javascripted links, so the JS menus aren't really a problem.

They aren't javascripted links. Javascript only controls their appearance and location in the page. The links you see at the bottom are what happens with the regular HTML if Javascript isn't present.

Below you will find the exact content of the HTML for the "Javascripted" links. As you can tell there is no javascript within the code. You can find this code by viewing source and scrolling to the bottom. They become dropdown menus through the use of CSS and Javascript but the coding itself is actual HTML.

<!-- popup menu contents -->
<br />

<!-- thread tools menu -->
<div class="vbmenu_popup" id="threadtools_menu" style="display:none">
<form action="postings.php" method="post" name="threadadminform">
    <table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0">
    <tr>
        <td class="thead">Thread Tools<a name="goto_threadtools"></a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option"><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/buttons/printer.gif" alt="Show Printable Version" /> <a href="printthread.php?t=157642" accesskey="3" rel="nofollow">Show Printable Version</a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option"><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/buttons/sendtofriend.gif" alt="Email this Page" /> <a href="sendmessage.php?do=sendtofriend&amp;t=157642" rel="nofollow">Email this Page</a></td>
    </tr>
    
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option"><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/buttons/subscribe.gif" alt="Subscription" />
        
            <a href="subscription.php?do=addsubscription&amp;t=157642" rel="nofollow">Subscribe to this Thread</a>
        
        </td>
    </tr>
    
    
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option"><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/buttons/addpoll.gif" alt="Add a Poll" /> <a href="poll.php?do=newpoll&amp;t=157642">Add a Poll to this Thread</a></td>
    </tr>
    
    
    <tr>
        <td class="thead">Admin Tools<a name="goto_threadadmin"></a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite">
        <div><label for="ao_oct"><input type="radio" name="do" id="ao_oct" value="openclosethread" checked="checked" />Close Thread</label></div>
        <div><label for="ao_mvt"><input type="radio" name="do" id="ao_mvt" value="movethread" />Move / Copy Thread</label></div>
        <div><label for="ao_edt"><input type="radio" name="do" id="ao_edt" value="editthread" />Edit Thread</label></div>
        <div><label for="ao_dlt"><input type="radio" name="do" id="ao_dlt" value="deletethread" />Delete Thread</label></div>
        
            <div><label for="ao_sut"><input type="radio" name="do" id="ao_sut" value="stick" />Stick Thread</label></div>
            <div><label for="ao_mgt"><input type="radio" name="do" id="ao_mgt" value="mergethread" />Merge Threads</label></div>
            <!--<div><label for="ao_spt"><input type="radio" name="do" id="ao_spt" value="splitthread" />Split Thread</label></div>-->
            <div><label for="ao_rrd"><input type="radio" name="do" id="ao_rrd" value="removeredirect" />Remove Redirects</label></div>
        
        
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite" align="center">
            <input type="hidden" name="s" value="" />
            <input type="hidden" name="t" value="157642" />
            <input type="hidden" name="pollid" value="" />
            <input type="submit" class="button" value="Perform Action" />
        </td>
    </tr>
    
    </table>
</form>
</div>
<!-- / thread tools menu -->

<!-- **************************************************** -->

<!-- thread display mode menu -->
<div class="vbmenu_popup" id="displaymodes_menu" style="display:none">
    <table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0">
    <tr>
        <td class="thead">Display Modes<a name="goto_displaymodes"></a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    
        <td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite"><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/buttons/mode_linear.gif" alt="Linear Mode" /> <strong>Linear Mode</strong></td>
    
    </tr>
    <tr>
    
        <td class="vbmenu_option"><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/buttons/mode_hybrid.gif" alt="Hybrid Mode" /> <a href="showthread.php?mode=hybrid&amp;t=157642">Switch to Hybrid Mode</a></td>
    
    </tr>
    <tr>
    
        <td class="vbmenu_option"><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/buttons/mode_threaded.gif" alt="Threaded Mode" /> <a href="showthread.php?p=980297&amp;mode=threaded#post980297">Switch to Threaded Mode</a></td>
    
    </tr>
    </table>
</div>
<!-- / thread display mode menu -->

<!-- **************************************************** -->


<!-- thread search menu -->  <div class="vbmenu_popup" id="threadsearch_menu" style="display:none">
<form action="search.php" method="post">
    <table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0">
    <tr>
        <td class="thead">Search this Thread<a name="goto_threadsearch"></a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite">
            <input type="hidden" name="s" value="" />
            <input type="hidden" name="do" value="process" />
            <input type="hidden" name="searchthread" value="1" />
            <input type="hidden" name="showposts" value="1" />
            <input type="hidden" name="searchthreadid" value="157642" />
            <input type="text" class="bginput" name="query" size="20" /><input type="submit" class="button" value="Go" /><br />
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="search.php">Advanced Search</a></td>
    </tr>
    </table>
</form>
</div>
<!-- / thread search menu -->


<!-- **************************************************** -->

<!-- thread rating menu -->
<div class="vbmenu_popup" id="threadrating_menu" style="display:none">
<form action="threadrate.php" method="post">
    <table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0">
    <tr>
        <td class="thead">Rate This Thread<a name="goto_threadrating"></a></td>
    </tr>
    
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite">
        <div><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/rating/rating_5.gif" alt="Excellent" /><label for="vote5"><input type="radio" name="vote" id="vote5" value="5" />Excellent</label></div>
        <div><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/rating/rating_4.gif" alt="Good" /><label for="vote4"><input type="radio" name="vote" id="vote4" value="4" />Good</label></div>
        <div><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/rating/rating_3.gif" alt="Average" /><label for="vote3"><input type="radio" name="vote" id="vote3" value="3" />Average</label></div>
        <div><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/rating/rating_2.gif" alt="Bad" /><label for="vote2"><input type="radio" name="vote" id="vote2" value="2" />Bad</label></div>
        <div><img class="inlineimg" src="http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/rating/rating_1.gif" alt="Terrible" /><label for="vote1"><input type="radio" name="vote" id="vote1" value="1" />Terrible</label></div>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite" align="center">
            <input type="hidden" name="s" value="389b19d7e4c8d6616fdcd8ab045c7acb" />
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            <input type="hidden" name="pp" value="100" />
            <input type="hidden" name="page" value="1" />
            <input type="submit" class="button" value="Vote Now" />
        </td>
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</form>

</div>
<!-- / thread rating menu -->

<!-- / popup menu contents -->

[I, Brian]

Thanks for trying to explain the issue carefully and patiently - I'm obviously quite wrong on a few issues, not least of cloaking and Javascripting - I figured the drop down links were a very clever addition to vb3, but I never appreciated just how.

However, here's a point of concern I'd like to return to:

Actually, if the Threaded / Hybrid modes are disabled in the vBulletin Options of your AdminCP, the appropriate menu is not displayed...

I've tested this on a couple of my forums - hybrid mode is disabled in the admin panel, but hybrid mode links show on the forums when I change my useragent for Firefox to Googlebot.

Are you able to replicate this?

[Colin F]

No, I can't replicate that either, sorry...

[Floris]

Nope, everything appears to be working as designed.