Definition
Sneaky redirects are redirects set up to show one thing to search engines and something else to users, or to send users somewhere they did not intend and would not expect — for example a page that ranks for a helpful query but immediately bounces the visitor to an unrelated offer, a redirect that fires only for mobile users or only for visitors from search, or JavaScript that redirects human visitors while leaving the crawler on the indexed page. Google lists sneaky redirects as a spam policy violation, distinct from legitimate redirects (a permanent 301 after a URL change, a consented locale redirect).
The defining feature is deception: the redirect's purpose is to get a page indexed and ranked for one thing while delivering users to another, or to hide the real destination from evaluation.
In context
For iGaming affiliates, sneaky redirects overlap heavily with cloaking and are a serious risk because the tactic is attractive: rank a clean, helpful-looking page for a competitive query, then redirect the real user to a bonus funnel or an operator the page never mentioned. Doing this — whether via server rules keyed on user agent or referrer, device-specific redirects, or client-side JavaScript that only moves human visitors — is a spam violation that can get the page or the site removed from search, and it also breaches advertising rules on identifiable advertising and misleading practices, and typically operator programme terms.
Legitimate redirects in this space are fine: a 301 after restructuring URLs, routing an out-of-market visitor to a compliant informational page (applied consistently, not to hide anything), or an app deep link. The test is whether the crawler and a real targeted user would end up seeing the same thing, and whether the redirect's purpose is honest routing or deception.
For affiliate-facing content, the framing is that any redirect logic that treats search engines differently from users, or sends users to a destination the ranking page did not represent, is sneaky-redirect spam, that it carries deindexing and compliance risk with no durable benefit, and that affiliate funnels should be built so the page a user lands on is the page that ranked.
Worked example
An affiliate removes a JavaScript redirect that sent human visitors from an informational glossary-style page to a bonus funnel while leaving crawlers on the original page. It rebuilds the funnel so the ranking page and the user's destination are the same, applies its out-of-market routing consistently for everyone, and documents that no redirect logic distinguishes search engines from users.
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