Doorway Page?

[jocknotech]

What is it? Good or bad?

And why does Google say watch out for SEO's who "puts links to their other clients on doorway pages".

Thanks,

JockNoTech

[Old Welsh Guy]

Hi JNT,

a Doorway page or gateway page or anyother name page is put simply a page that is designed exclusivly to attract search engine traffic. OK you say, so that is what SEO is all about right? YEP! but the difference being that if the page is an integral part of your site, being linked to, as well as from the other pages within your site, it becomes a valuable piece of content.

Doorway pages tend to be orphaned r semi orphaned ie linking in to the pages you want to deliver traffic to.

Some do this with automatic redirects, so that the page that gets ranked is not the page trafic gets delivered to. Others simply allow the visitor to land there, thn move into the site.

There are unscrupulous companies out there who will design doorway pages, and host them on their own server. This holds you to ransom,as if you stop paying you stop getting. others will hide links to their other client sites within your own pages hosted on your server. This buiolds up link popularity for other client sites, but may well be sites that no one would link to. Ilegal porn sites, gambling sites etc.

A reputable SEO may well suggest extra content pages designed with both user and search engine in mind, but these will form an integral part of your site, and will not be doorway pages.

Don't confuse doorway pages with landing pages, designed for the use of Pay Per Click campaigns however. The use of such pages is legitimate, in fact highly recommended, as it allows you to target the landing page to the advert to ensure maximum conversion per click. Ideally though, if a landing page is orphaned, it should be excluded from the robots.