The Hazards of Doorway Pages

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October 29th, 2009 by Mike

When doing an analysis of websites for our clients at Click Consult, we often come across doorway pages. Doorway pages are created specifically for SEO rather than to add value to the user.

These pages are developed in order to create a page that targets specific keyphrases. Usually these pages are one-page sites and the domain name will contain the targeted keyphrase. Within the site, all links will be directed back to the domain name with the exception of the homepage.

Within any site there are usually multiple doorway pages. Each will be designed to replicate the design of the main site but will be targeting different keyphrases. These pages will then be linked back the main website.

Although this seems like an innovative idea, by using this ‘black hat’ technique your site can be severely penalised.

Reasons Google Does Not Like Doorway Pages:

The most key reason is that the user never arrives at an appropriate page. The doorway pages simply encourage users to click through to the main site.

They spam Google’s index.

Often, doorway pages are linked from a high ranking page creating duplicate issues.

Meta Refresh is often used by doorway pages to redirect to other pages and this violates Google guidelines.

These pages are also called bridge, jump and portal pages but no matter what you choose to call them they should be avoided as they may undo your search engine optimisation and cause you to have a low ranking in Google.

For help with your SEO contact us at Click Consult today.

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