This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
Bot equals human: why search engines must see the same thing
The check requests the page twice — once with a search engine identifier, once with an ordinary one — and compares what comes back. If the two versions differ substantially, that's a finding.
- Deliberately delivering different content to search engines is a policy violation with harsh consequences. The unintentional case is more common: a protection mechanism treats the search engine's request as suspicious and delivers a block page.
- Also common: geographic redirects. A request from a data centre lands on a different language version than a request from the target country.
- The finding names the difference, not the intent. Whether it's a protective measure or deception, a measurement can't decide.
