KloakIt 3.0 Active Help

How KloakIt works

The guts of KloakIt is in the entrance page files which are created when you make new entrance pages. These files all have the extension ".htm". Your server is instructed to treat these files as CGI scripts instead of regular web pages. The rest of the filename of an entrance page file is composed of your keyword phrase, with the words of the phrase separated by hyphens.

The cloaked URLs all point to the .htm files on your server. When one of these files is executed by your server, KloakIt springs into action.

First, KloakIt detects the I.P. address and hostname of the visitor. If it matches any entry on a robot list, KloakIt remembers which list it matched. It opens the appropriate template for the matching list and reads it into memory.

Then KloakIt gets your keyword phrase from the name of the entrance page file. If your entrance page file is named widgets-and-gadgets.htm, then KloakIt knows the keyword phrase is "widgets and gadgets". Then KloakIt reads your secondary keywords. Now KloakIt is ready to display the entrance page to the search engine.

KloakIt reads the template file line by line and replaces all #keyword# entries with your keyword phrase. It replaces all #secondarykeyword# entries with your secondary keywords. Then it prints out the line to the search engine. The search engine is completely fooled into thinking it is seeing a normal web page, except this page is extremely optimized for great placement under your keyword phrase. Also, a list of links to your other cloaked pages is displayed at the bottom of the page to help spiders crawl your other pages.

On the other hand, when the I.P. address and hostname don't match any of the entries in your robot lists, KloakIt realizes the visitor is just a regular web surfer. Remember when you installed KloakIt and it asked you what file you wanted to show normal people? Well, KloakIt loads this file and displays it to the visitor. The visitor has no idea he is seeing something different from what a search engine would see.

Editing individual entrance page files

You might occasionally want to crack open a few of your entrance page files and edit them manually. Some things you can change are: the filename of the normal page displayed to a regular web surfer, you can make a regular websurfer be redirected off the website where KloakIt is installed (not recommended because it's not as stealthy), or you can turn off the list of links displayed at the bottom of entrance pages. Instructions on how to do this are in files themselves.

When you edit the files manually, you must first download them to your computer in ASCII mode, edit them in a text editor like TextPad or WordPad, then upload them in ASCII mode.

Be careful!

Viewing entire access log

The access log in your control panel is limited to the most recent 500 accesses. To view the entire log, you must view the log file itself. KloakIt's access log is stored in a file called access.log, surprisingly enough, in the "data" directory. You may have renamed this directory when you installed KloakIt.

To view this file, simply enter its URL in your browser, or download it using FTP.

Security Notes

When installing KloakIt 3.0, I highly recommend you change the name of the control panel script, which by default is called "control.cgi". You should also password protect this file. I also recommend you change the name of your "data" directory. These security features were added to make it difficult for the unauthorized to tamper with your KloakIt 3.0 installation.

Try to be discreet when telling others about KloakIt. Don't brag about your new cloaking device to your competition. Don't notify the tech support of search engines you are submitting to that your pages are cloaked. Don't go out in the snow in your underwear. All of these things are stupid things to do.

Server requirements

KloakIt requires your server to run the Unix operating system. Typically, Unix variants like Linux will also work.

KloakIt requires your server to run Apache web server software. You must be allowed to execute CGI scripts on your server, preferrably outside the CGI bin. You must be allowed to use .htaccess files.

The LWP::Simple, LWP::UserAgent, and HTTP::Date modules for Perl must be installed. If these modules are not installed, ask your system administrator to visit CPAN to download them and install them. They are free.

KloakIt will run on Windows servers, with a few notes: 1) You have to use the .cgi filename extension with your cloaked pages. 2) You must have Perl installed.

If your server does not meet the above requirements, send me an email and I'll recommend a server for you.