Cloaking detector

What this tool checks

Cloaking is serving one version of a page to search-engine crawlers and a different version to human visitors — a Google spam-policy violation that can trigger a manual action and remove your pages from results. This check fetches a URL twice, once with a Googlebot user-agent and once as a real browser, and compares the HTTP status, response size, and title tag. It matters because AI answer engines and Google alike must see the same content a user sees to trust and cite it; a real crawler-vs-user mismatch can quietly cost you rankings and visibility.

What it looks at

Googlebot vs browser status

The HTTP status code returned to each user-agent; a 200 for browsers but a 403 or 302 for Googlebot exposes crawler-specific blocking or redirects.

Response size delta

The byte size of the HTML each agent receives; a large gap means different content is being served to the crawler than to users.

Title tag match

The <title> each agent sees; a different title served to Googlebot is a classic cloaking red flag that inflates or misrepresents the page in search.

User-agent branching

Server logic that changes output based on the UA string; legitimate uses are rare, so most crawler-vs-user divergence is a spam risk.

Redirect divergence

Whether one agent is redirected while the other is not; sneaky redirects that send only crawlers elsewhere are explicitly penalized.

Crawler parity

Whether the bot can reach the same full page a human does, rather than a blocked, stripped, or placeholder version.

How to use it

1. Paste your URL and run the check.
2. Review the flagged mismatches between the Googlebot and browser fetches — status, size, and title.
3. Fix the server rule or CDN config so both agents receive identical content, then re-run to confirm.

Frequently asked questions