Google: Showing Structured Data Markup Just To GoogleBot Is Cloaking

Dec 26, 2017 - 8:33 am 5 by

Google Cloaking

Did you know that if you decide to just show your structured data markup to GoogleBot, Google's spiders/crawlers, and hide it from normal users in the source code, that would be considered cloaking. Cloaking is against Google's webmaster guidelines and can result in a manual action.

Google said you need to show both humans and GoogleBot the same HTML and not just show GoogleBot the HTML.

The question came up on Twitter and Google's John Mueller said that it is cloaking to do that. The reason was somewhat legit, the webmaster wanted to hide their structured markup from their competitors.

But no, you cannot do that without potentially getting into hot water with Google.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 26, 2026

Feb 26, 2026 - 10:00 am
Google

Google Circle to Search Looks At The Whole Image

Feb 26, 2026 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads API Version 23.1 Now Available

Feb 26, 2026 - 7:41 am
Bing SEO

Microsoft Updates Bing Webmaster Guidelines (A Bit)

Feb 26, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google

Google To Test Showing Vertical Search Services In EU

Feb 26, 2026 - 7:21 am
Google Maps

Google Post Recurring Scheduling Coming

Feb 26, 2026 - 7:11 am
 
Previous Story: When Google Maps Shows Embarrassing Business Photos Over Your Photos