Is serving Googlebot a transcript in place of a video considered to be cloaking?

Channel:
United States Google Search Central
Subscribers:
751,000
Published on ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E55GSewERBo


Duration: 1:17
9,362 views
14

Hi Matt, is serving a word-for-word text transcript in place of a video to Googlebot considered a negative form of cloaking which could result in a penalty? Jeremy, Chicago

Have a question? Ask it in our Webmaster Help Forum: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en

Want your question to be answered on a video like this? Follow us on Twitter and look for an announcement when we take new questions: http://twitter.com/googlewmc

More videos: http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp
Webmaster Central Blog: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
Webmaster Central: http://www.google.com/webmasters



Other Videos By Google Search Central


2011-05-25Why aren't the Google Toolbar PageRank values updated more often?
2011-05-25Should I add nofollow to banner ads?
2011-05-25Will setting the rel="canonical" attribute of a page to itself cause a loop?
2011-05-25Would you rather spend time with a perfectly optimized website or a barrel full of kittens?
2011-05-25Will showing recent posts on my homepage cause a duplicate content issue?
2011-05-25Why do Amazon.com pages tend to rank well for product queries?
2011-05-25How much content should be on a homepage?
2011-05-25What should I do if the "noindex" attribute doesn't appear to be working?
2011-05-25Is the same content posted under different TLDs a problem?
2011-05-25Can switching to HTTPS harm ranking?
2011-05-05Is serving Googlebot a transcript in place of a video considered to be cloaking?
2011-05-05Why do porn sites have lower PageRank?
2011-05-05What's your opinion on microsites?
2011-04-22How does Google handle pages with content that changes on each page load?
2011-04-22Should internal links use rel="nofollow"?
2011-04-22Is there a way to indicate boilerplate content on a page?
2011-04-19What do you think about Blekko?
2011-04-19Can coding errors affect how a page is indexed?
2011-04-19Can I flag spammy links to my site that I didn't create?
2011-04-19Can I tell Google about links to my site?
2011-04-19Does Google support cross-domain rel="canonical"?


Tags:
google
seo
cloaking
video
transcript