The term "doorway pages" has become a term synonymous with Spam
as unscrupulous marketers have applied questionable techniques in
an attempt to achieve top rankings.

As always the search engines have caught on and the backlash has
been intense, any SEO company mentioning "doorway pages" is
immediately ostracized.

================================
What Are "Doorway Pages" Anyway?
================================


Also known as portal pages, jump pages, bridge pages, gateway
pages and entry pages (amongst others), definitions do vary
depending on who you listen to.

On their web site Inktomi defines "doorway pages" as follows:

"Doorway" is a term for pages which send the user to a different
page.

That is a pretty broad definition that leaves a lot to the
imagination.

Basically they are generally considered to be pages specially
optimized for the search engines to boost search engine rankings.

They can be created simply to push the user onto where the page
owner wants them to go either via a text link or an automatic
refresh.

As technology improves doorway pages have become more
sophisticated, using "cloaking" which Google defines as follows:

When "cloaking," a website returns altered web pages to a search
engine accessing the site. That is, the webserver is programmed
to return different content to Google than it returns to regular
users, usually in an attempt to distort search engine rankings.

Basically these are more high tech doorway pages that show the
search engines one page, while human visitors get another.

============================
Search Engines and Doorways
============================

How do the search engines react to all this?

As defined above, Inktomi says quite simply:

"Inktomi does not want doorway pages in the index."

while Google is even more menacing:

"To preserve the accuracy and quality of our search results,
Google may permanently ban from our index any sites or authors
who engage in cloaking to distort their search rankings."

This type of threat by the search engines has caused honest
webmasters to sit up and take notice. Everyone wants top rankings
but at what risk?

All the Spam techniques have left is an aura of confusion as
people are afraid of being accidentally banned for an innocent
mistake.

The classic example of that are sites with legitimate reasons
(new site, new domain name, etc...) for having a refresh tag, yet
the search engines now tend to treat refreshes with suspicion.

==========================
Using Doorways Effectively
==========================

What? Who would consider using doorways after reading all this?
The real problem with "doorway pages" lies in the rough
definition of "pages designed to trick the search engines".

Go back to the Inktomi site for a moment and see what they really
want:

"Apropos to search engines, we like to see truly original text
content, intended to be of value to the public. The search engine
algorithm is sophisticated and is designed to match the regular
text in Web pages to search queries; therefore no special
treatment needs to be done to the text in the pages. Inktomi
encourages Web designers to focus most of their energy on the
content of the pages themselves."

Effective web site optimization comes down to giving the search
engines what they want, not trying to trick them!

Build content rich pages, turn your site into a collection of
informative, keyword rich pages (not graphics the search engines
can't read) and watch your rankings soar!

We need to change the definition of "doorway pages" to
"meaningful keyword rich content filled pages" and bring the
Internet back to what is was meant to be.

No tricks, just lots of information!


Happy Marketing!

Mike Beriault
Editor, Surf22