hide some area (sidebar/footer) from googlebot. causing any SEO problem?

Question

For example, I have a product page

http://www.myshop.com/product/iphone.html

in this page, normal users will see:

• content area (about the iPhone itself)
• sidebar links (links to other products: HTC, Samsung)
• footer area (about the seller)

but googlebot only see content area. I hide sidebar links and footer area from googlebot.

I do this so that if someone google 'htc site:myshop.com', he/she will not see that iPhone page in search results.

Will this cause any SEO problem? (I'm afraid google consider this as cheating their googlebot and punish the website)

Answer 1

It's a bad idea to hide elements for google, google is smart and you could definitely get punished for this.

Read more here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355