Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Save big on Moz Pro!
      Limited time offer

      Save big on Moz Pro!

      See pricing
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      Access the Moz API for less
      Save on Moz Data

      Access the Moz API for less

      Hurry - ends Dec 6th!
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Save 20% on all Moz Academy courses
      Limited time offer

      Save 20% on all Moz Academy courses

      Level up your SEO
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Explore Moz updates & save up to 40%
      Big Savings!

      Explore Moz updates & save up to 40%

      See the latest
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4. URL masking

    URL masking

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    1
    1
    920
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • SimonaCretu
      SimonaCretu last edited by

      Hi all,

      Within my organization we maintain a bunch of websites, say child1.com, child2.com and child3.com. It was recently suggested that we merge all three into a single one, say mother.com. The marketing community within my organization strongly argued against this, mainly due to risks related to brand awareness, rank and traffic loss for each of these websites. But we resigned to the idea that we must do it, so we started considering the next proper steps.

      Now, my understanding is that setting up redirects is crucial in order to cushion the fall and mitigate the losses. However, some people are suggesting url masking. To me personally, url masking doesn't sound like a white hat practice, maybe it's borderline grey, but the bottom line is I need some advice on this topic. Could someone kindly address the following:

      1. How is url masking different from url redirect?

      2. Is url masking different from url cloaking?

      3. Would google penalize us for implementing url masking?

      4. Would that have any impact on our PPC campaigns?

      5. Are there any documented cases of successful and google-sanctioned websites that are actively using url masking?

      6. Are there any pitfalls to using this strategy?

      Thank you

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • 1 / 1
      • First post
        Last post

      Got a burning SEO question?

      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


      Start my free trial


      Browse Questions

      Explore more categories

      • Moz Tools

        Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

      • SEO Tactics

        Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

      • Community

        Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

      • Digital Marketing

        Chat about tactics outside of SEO

      • Research & Trends

        Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

      • Support

        Connect on product support and feature requests.

      • See all categories

      Related Questions

      • Rajesh.Prajapati

        Following urls should be add in disavow file or not

        Hey Moz Friends, Should I include following spam link urls in disavow file or not? OR Will Google handle automatically? These type I have thousands urls. =>>>web-seek.org/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>web-seek.net/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>websearching.net/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42/
        =>>>websearch.pl/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>web-search.net/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42/
        =>>>web-pages.org/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42/
        =>>>web-page.org/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>the-world.net/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>the-internet.tv/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>the-internet.in/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>the-globe.tv/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42/
        =>>>theglobe.sk/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>theglobe.ru/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<=
        =>>>theglobe.pl/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_42.html<<<= Hope you will give any solution. Waiting for your positive response.

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Rajesh.Prajapati
        0
      • RobinJA

        Does ID's in URL is good for SEO? Will SEO Submissions sites allow such urls submissions?

        Example url: http://public.beta.travelyaari.com/vrl-travels-13555-online It's our sites beta URL, We are going to implement it for our site. After implementation, it will be live on travelyaari.com like this - "https://www.travelyaari.com/vrl-travels-13555-online". We have added the keywords etc in the URL "VRL Travels". But the problems is, there are multiple VRL travels available, so we made it unique with a unique id in URL - "13555".  So that we can exactly get to know which VRL Travels and it is also a solution for url duplication. Also from users / SEO point of view, the url has readable texts/keywords - "vrl travels online". Can some Moz experts suggest me whether it will affect SEO performance in any manner? SEO Submissions sites will accept this URL? Meanwhile, I had tried submitting this URL to Reddit etc.  It got accepted.

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobinJA
        0
      • JMSCC

        Deleting 301 Redirect URLs from the CMS

        Hi Everyone, Would there be a negative SEO effect from deleting pages with 301 redirects in your CMS? Does anyone know of an average time of authority transfer from a redirect? Thanks,
        Jon

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JMSCC
        0
      • Happy-SEO

        URL Masking or Cloaking?

        Hi Guy's, On our webshop we link from our menu to categories were we want to rank on in Google. Because the menu is sitewide i guess Google finds the categories in the menu important and meaby let them score better (onside links) The problem that i'm facing with is that we make difference in Gender. In the menu we have: Man and Woman. Links from the menu go to: /categorie?gender=1/ and /category?gender=2/. But we don't want to score on gender but on the default URL. For example: Focus keyword = Shoes Menu Man link: /shoes?gender=1 Menu Woman link:  /shoes?gender=2 But we only want to rank on /shoes/. But that URL is not placed in the menu. Every URL with: "?" has a follow noindex. So i was thinking to make a link in the menu, on man and woman: /shoes/, but on mouse down (program it that way) ?=gender. Is this cloaking for Google? What we also could do is make a canonical to the /shoes/ page. But i don't know if we get intern linking value on ?gender pages that have a canonical. Hope it makes senses 🙂 Advises are also welcome, such as: Place al the default URL's in the footer.

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Happy-SEO
        0
      • _JediMindBender

        Site build in the 80% of canonical URLs - What is the impact on visibility?

        Hey Everyone, I represent international wall decorations store where customer can freely choose a pattern to be printed on a given material among a few milions of patterns. Due to extreme large number of potential URL combinations we struggle with too many URL adressess for a months now (search console notifications). So we finally decided to reduce amount of products with canonical tag. Basing on users behavior, our business needs and monthly search volume data we selected 8 most representative out of 40 product categories and made them canonical toward the rest. For example: If we chose 'Canvas prints' as our main product category, then every 'Framed canvas' product URL points rel=canonical tag toward its equivalent URL within 'Canvas prints' category. We applied the same logic to other categories (so "Vinyl wall mural - Wild horses running" URL points rel=canonical tag to "Wall mural - Wild horses running" URL, etc). In terms of Googlebot interpretation, there are really tiny differences between those Product URLs, so merging them with rel=canonical seems like a valid use. But we need to keep those canonicalised URLs for users needs, so we can`t remove them from a store as well as noindex does not seem like an good option. However we`re concerned about our SEO visibility - if we make those changes, our site will consist of ~80% canonical URLs (47,5/60 millions). Regarding your experience, do you have advices how should we handle that issue? Regards
        JMB

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | _JediMindBender
        0
      • Myntra

        How to resolve - Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs

        Hi, We got this message from Google Webmaster “Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs on your site”. The sample URLs provided by Google are all either noindex or have a canonical. http://www.myntra.com/nike-stylish-show-caps-sweaters http://www.myntra.com/backpacks/f-gear/f-gear-unisex-black-&-purple-calvin-backpack/162453/buy?src=tn&nav_id=541 http://www.myntra.com/kurtas/alma/alma-women-blue-floral-printed-kurta/85178/buy?nav_id=625 Also we have specified the parameters on these URLs as representative URL in Google Webmaster - URL parameters. Your comments on how to resolve this issue will be appreciated. Thank You Kaushal Thakkar

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Myntra
        0
      • McTaggart

        Should I ask for Nofollow on directory URLs?

        Hi, I'm just putting pizza restaurant on various very relevant 'eating out' directories. Just noticed one directory then proceeds to place your listing on around 40 other sub-directories (each with own URL). They don't put <no follow="">tags on any of the 40 odd backlinking URLs.</no> I currently have around 300 existing backlinks, to this pizza restaurant, from a diverse range of sites. Should I ask them to put a nofollow on these 40 odd new backlinking directory URLs?

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | McTaggart
        0
      • RUNNERagency

        Google Sitemaps & punishment for bad URLS?

        Hoping y'all have some input here. This is along story, but I'll boil it down: Site X bought the url of Site Y.  301 redirects were added to direct traffic (and help transfer linkjuice) from urls in Site X to relevant urls in Site Y, but 2 days before a "change of address" notice was submitted in Google Webmaster Tools, an auto-generating sitemap somehow applied urls from Site Y to the sitemap of Site X, so essentially the sitemap contained urls that were not the url of Site X. Is there any documentation out there that Google would punish Site X for having essentially unrelated urls in its sitemap by downgrading organic search rankings because it may view that mistake as black hat (or otherwise evil) tactics?  I suspect this because the site continues to rank well organically in Yahoo & Bing, yet is nonexistent on Google suddenly. Thoughts?

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RUNNERagency
        0
      Moz logo
      • Contact
      • Community
      • Free Trial
      • Terms & Privacy
      • Accessibility
      • Jobs
      • Help
      • What's New
      • News & Press
      • MozCon
      © 2021 - 2024 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.

      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.