I have just taken on a new SEO client who is concerned that a previous company may have set up doorway pages to his site. Does anyone know how I can check to see if this is the case? Maybe that's a dumb question, because even if the had done so they would have surely taken them down as soon as he fired them.
It depends on how they are done... in most cases you could probably see them in the http referrer logs...
I wouldn't be so sure. I'm always amazed at the number of sites I come across that are completely abandoned. It really doesn't hurt them any to leave up the doorway pages, so it's possible no one will go through the effort. If the domains or doorway pages are not on your client;s web server, could they really cause your client harm in the SERPs? I thought a domain/IP cannot be punished for what other people do. If that was possible, what would be stopping me from setting up 20 such pages directed at the competitors above me in the rankings? Google et al can obviously punish or ban the doorway pages, but I would be suprised if they punished your client.
This might be a dumb answer, Bob, but has the client given you FTP access to the site yet? I had a client earlier this year who, when I transferred their site to a new host, I found 4 doorway pages so blatantly labelled doorway1.htm, doorway2.htm etc...
Lever, Yes I do have access to the site on the server, and your suggestion is good. However isn't it possible that Doorway pages might be set up on other servers. I thought some Doorway page advocates set them up on their own servers.