With the ever-increasing advent of the concept of silo in modern SEO, we have seen a relatively old practice revert to the taste of the day: the obfuscation of links. This practice of hiding links to Google while leaving them available to users has the advantage of seriously reconciling UX specialists to SEO. Let’s look together at what it is and some examples.
The concept of silo
The concept of silo is not new: it has even been (and still is) particularly honored by the semantic cocoon strategy, still widespread in The USA.
The notion of silo thus consists in grouping pages by themes and especially at the level of the internal mesh. Logic tell me. However, this goes against certain UX elements rooted in common practices: mega-menu, generic navigation or footers more or less provided.
Google now treating the sites as a whole and no longer page by page, it rewards those who avoid integrating links to the category USB key from the umbrella page.
He thus estimates that when the user makes a request on his engine, his real need can go beyond his initial request and that more a site is complete not on the keyword but also on the theme of the keyword in a wider way , the more it will be able to satisfy the Internet users. Google will reward complete sites, that is to say silos.
What is obfuscation?
The debates, sometimes heated, between SEO and UX were raging about mega menus for example: sometimes (often) very useful from a UX point of view, especially in e-commerce, they were totally against this concept of silo. From the page “PC screen” I can access all the subcategories of my section “Litterie”: not top to complete the request of the user…
It was not always easy to explain that you had to do without ideal SEO performance, while we all appreciate this feature as a user.
Fortunately, obfuscation is back in fashion. Where this practice was considered bordeline, or even gray-ish (black?) Hat, it is now exploited by the majority of major players in the the USA web. In the same way, where obfuscation was used for the optimized exploitation of the facets, it is now exploited much wider at all levels of the site: menu, content and footer.
Obfuscation, therefore, is to hide some of its content (often links) to Google while leaving them on the page. Convenient!
So how to do?
There are actually several integration methods, mostly based on JS.
I load a part of my site (my mega menu for example) via a script JS: the code is no longer present server side but only executed client side. All that remains for me is to block access to Google to this script, via a rule in the robots.txt for example (or via a server block).
Some go further and perform cloaking to protect themselves to the fullest.
In the end, part of my site is loaded by an external script that is very well executed by all modern browsers and therefore by users but that Google will never see. Rather safe at first sight!
We can push the practice a little further and load the blocked elements into asynchronous rollover for example: the script becomes even more difficult to detect by Google who will probably never have the curiosity to go see it and who will consider the no file crawl as relatively minor to him.
Some examples
The sites to practice obfuscation are very numerous in the USA.
We can cite for example Cdiscount masking part of his mega menu and his footer. To test it, simply go to a category page (the one of your choice).
However, they are well completed when I look at the normal version, on which I navigate: these blocks are actually loaded by JS which is blocked to Google.
In the same way, the footer will not appear on the cache version while it appears very well on the normal site as a user.
This is 100% beneficial for the site: the user can continue to use the mega menu and access in a few clicks to all subcategories from everywhere and next, my silos are well drawn and I take advantage of the semantic contribution of 100% navigation.
Now, if I look at the cache version: nothing else opens when the mouse moves over the first levels. The menu is obfuscated.
Small precision: if you want to test the obfuscation of some sites, do not test it on the homepage. Instead, bet on category pages: exhaustive navigation is not a problem on a homepage, it is even recommended. Often the obfuscation begins at the level of the category pages.
Is obfuscation penalized by Google?
This is a question that can be debated and that will be based on the level of paranoia that everyone can have against the American giant. The reality is that many big players use it in a big way, without being penalized until then. They benefit from SEO gains that could give them a significant competitive advantage, as competition would be more cautious with this practice.
In theory anyway, it seems complicated to imagine Google overriding the robots.txt to test a relatively minor JS file in his eyes. It remains to know the impact of Google’s “human” teams, their vision and their real power. In the end, without engaging in science fiction, I think we can say that this practice is relatively safe.
Obfuscation is thus booming and the advent of the JS and the concept of silo will not be obstacles to its development, quite the opposite. No more debates on the impact of a mega menu and the interpretation that can make Google: no need to leave him the choice and suffer his (theoretical) incompetence on the subject. It is enough simply to bet on the obfuscation. To make the perfect use of obfuscation you must hire the best Digital marketing agency from here.
