In the SEO world, doorway pages are a controversial topic.
Some believe they’re essential to boost SEO strategy, while others think they can do more harm than good.
So, what’s the truth? Are doorway pages helpful for search engine optimization, or should you avoid them altogether?
To answer this question, we will discuss what doorway pages are and how they affect your SEO practice.
What are Doorway Pages?
Doorway pages, also known as jump pages, are web pages crafted to achieve a high search engine ranking. Unscrupulous individuals, including spammers and practitioners of black hat SEO, often deploy doorway pages to manipulate search rankings.
The primary purpose of doorway pages is to deceive search engine algorithms by appearing relevant to a specific keyword or phrase, despite lacking substantial, original content. Typically of low quality, these pages are densely packed with keywords but offer little valuable information to visitors.
Doorway pages are a bad idea for SEO practice as they compromise the user experience. They are designed to trick search engines into funneling more traffic towards a particular website or landing page. Sometimes referred to as “bridges,” “portals,” or “splash” pages, they can negatively impact the credibility of a site.
Page hijacking is a practice where doorway pages are created to direct users to different sites instead of redirecting them to the main website. This tactic is not in line with Google’s guidelines.
Over the years, Google has evolved its approach to doorway pages. Since 2015, Google has emphasized the importance of providing relevant results to users and discourages the creation of doorway pages solely for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.
Well-established doorway campaigns involve creating multiple landing pages or using multiple domains to target specific keyword variations. This practice is frowned upon by Google as it results in duplicate pages essentially leading to the same destination. Google’s guidelines emphasize a clear example of the importance of delivering diverse and relevant search results to users.
What’s the Difference between a Doorway Page and a Landing Page?
A doorway page is a web page with the sole purpose of funnelling traffic from a search engine to another, multiple similar pages.
Doorway pages are often optimized for specific, high-traffic keywords and offer little value to the user beyond redirecting them to the target page.
On the contrary, landing pages are web pages designed to convert visitors into leads or customers.
Landing pages are usually standalone pages that are different from the rest of the entire website and optimized for a specific conversion goal.
Landing pages are typically focused on a single conversion goal and usually have a form or call-to-action (CTA) that encourages visitors to take that desired action.
Unlike doorway pages, landing pages do not solely want to rank in search engines and typically offer valuable content or resources that help the user achieve their goal.
What is the Difference between Cloaking and Doorway Pages?
Cloaking and doorway pages are distinct SEO practices, each with its own set of characteristics and implications. Let’s explore the differences between the two.
Cloaking involves presenting different content to search engines and users. When a user visits a page, they see one set of content, while search engines are shown another, often more keyword-rich or optimized version. The intention behind cloaking is to manipulate search rankings by deceiving search engine algorithms.
A clear example of cloaking is when a website displays content to search engines that is entirely different from what a user sees. This deceptive practice is considered a bad idea in SEO because it compromises the relevance and accuracy of search results. Cloaking is against Google’s guidelines, as it undermines the goal of providing relevant and consistent results to users.
On the other hand, doorway pages, as discussed earlier, are web pages created with the sole purpose of ranking high in search engine results. They are typically low-quality, containing minimal original content and a concentration of keywords. Doorway pages aim to trick search engine algorithms into believing they are relevant to specific keywords or phrases.
Unlike cloaking, where the content manipulation happens on one page, doorway pages are different pages specifically created to attract search engine traffic. They can negatively impact the user experience by funneling visitors to a particular site or landing page, often without providing meaningful content.
While both cloaking and doorway pages involve deceptive practices to manipulate search engine rankings, cloaking focuses on manipulating content visibility on the same page, while doorway pages are multiple pages created to rank higher in search results. Both practices are against Google’s guidelines, as they compromise the integrity of specific search queries and user experience.
Why Do Search Engines Hate Doorway Pages?
There are various reasons why search engines may view doorway pages with suspicion or dislike.
Doorway pages can be purely for the benefit of search engine algorithms rather than for actual human users. It means they may do keyword stuffing and other elements designed to artificially inflate their search rankings rather than genuine, useful pages with quality content.
Doorway pages can solely mean redirecting users to another page or website rather than providing valuable content or information. It can be frustrating for users to click on a link expecting to find something useful, only to be taken straight to another website.
A doorway page is a form of spam as it is effectively just a way of getting users to visit another website they may not have seen.
Finally, search engines may view doorway pages as a low-quality form of content since they are often created solely for the benefit of search engines and not for actual users. It means that they may be less likely to rank well in search results or may even be penalized by some search engines.
What are Examples of Doorway Pages?
These are web pages created to rank with the primary intention of manipulating search engine and boost SEO, often compromising the user experience. Here are some clear examples of doorway pages to be aware of:
Keyword-Stuffed Pages: Doorway pages filled excessively with keyword phrases attempt to manipulate search results by artificially boosting the page’s relevance to specific keywords.
Misleading Information Pages: Some doorway pages funnel traffic away from the main website by providing misleading or false information, undermining the goal of delivering relevant and accurate results.
Clickbait Pages: Doorway pages created as clickbait feature misleading titles or descriptions, enticing users to click under false pretenses and then go to different locations instead of where the intended content is supposed to be.
Link-Focused Pages: Pages comprising unrelated links aim to boost a website’s link popularity but lack a coherent structure and valuable content.
Content Duplication Pages: Doorway pages with copied content from other websites lack originality and attempt to manipulate search results without permission.
While individuals may create doorway pages with varied intentions, search engines, particularly Google, view them as a form of spam. Such practices can lead to penalties and adversely impact your site’s search ranking. If you suspect your actual website may host doorway pages, conducting a thorough audit is advisable to identify and remove such pages, ensuring a more authentic and user-friendly online presence.
Why should you Get rid of Low Quality “Doorway Pages”?
If you have a low-quality “doorway page” on your website, it’s time to get rid of it! Here’s why:
1. They’re a poor user experience.
Doorway pages often get users to click on ads or affiliate links. It means that they generally provide little to no value for the user and can even be confusing or frustrating to try to use.
Doorway pages lead to poor user experience.
2. They can hurt your search engine ranking.
Because doorway pages trick users and Google, they can hurt your website’s search engine ranking. If search engines detect that you’re using a doorway page, they may penalize your site or even remove it from their index entirely.
3. They’re against Google’s guidelines.
Google’s guidelines for webmasters explicitly state that “A doorway page can attract visitors to a site by search engines.” They say that these pages “are typically low-quality pages with little or no original added content” and that they “should be avoided.”
Start identifying any low-quality doorway pages. Once you’ve found them, please take action to improve the page’s quality or remove it entirely.
How to identify Doorway Pages On Your Website?
A doorway page can be challenging to identify, but there are a few key indicators that can help:
- The page consists mainly of keyword phrases, with little original content
- The page is designed to funnel traffic to a particular website or landing pages
- There is little to no interaction on the page (e.g., no comments, social media shares, etc.)
- The page has a high bounce rate, meaning people leave the page quickly after arriving
- The page is not linked to any other pages on the website
How to Ensure Traffic After Getting Rid of Doorway pages?
Doorway pages are generally a form of black hat SEO practice, which can result in penalties from Google.
Removing doorway pages as soon as possible is essential on your website if you have doorway pages.
Not only they are bad for your SEO, but they can also result in a loss of traffic.
Here are tips to help you ensure that you don’t lose any traffic after removing doorway pages:
Redirect any links to the doorway pages.
If you have any links pointing to your doorway pages, redirect them to other pages on your site. It will help prevent any loss of traffic from those links.
Monitor your website’s traffic.
Use Google Analytics or another similar service to monitor your website’s traffic. It will help you see if there is any drop in traffic after you remove the doorway page.
Use other marketing channels.
Don’t rely on organic search traffic alone. Make sure to use other marketing channels, such as social media, email marketing, and paid advertising, to drive traffic to your website.
Keep your website updated.
Make sure to add new content to your website regularly. It will help keep people coming back to your site and help you rank higher in user search results.
Monitor your SEO.
Use tools like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to monitor your website’s SEO. It will help you see if there are any changes in your website’s ranking or traffic after you remove the doorway pages.
Review your specific keywords
Review the specific keywords that were driving traffic to your doorway page. You can do this using Google Search Console and Keyword Planner. Once you know which keyword phrases were driving traffic, you can start optimizing your website for those search terms.
Avoid duplicate content
There are steps you can take to avoid it on your site:
1. Use unique and descriptive titles for your pages.
2. Write original and compelling meta descriptions for each page.
3. Use canonical tags to tell search engines which version of a page is the original.
4. Avoid using the same keyword or keyphrase too often on a single page.
5. Use 301 redirects to send traffic from old pages to new pages.
6. Use rel= “nofollow” tags on links to external sites to which you don’t want to pass link juice.
7. Use Google Webmaster Tools to find and fix duplicate content issues on your site.
8. Check for plagiarism if you’re concerned about the same content from other sources.
Avoid hard-to-find pages
To ensure your site has no hidden or difficult-to-find pages, thoroughly check your site’s navigation. Make sure all of your pages are easily accessible from your home page and that there are no “dead ends” where visitors can get lost. If you have a large site, consider adding a search function to help visitors find what they’re looking for.
The best way to avoid hard-to-find pages is to ensure that your website is well-organized and easy to navigate. A doorway page results in poor website design, so by improving the overall design of your site, you can also reduce the chances of having doorway pages.
Some other tips to avoid hard-to-find pages include:
• Make sure your website has a sitemap and that all of your pages link from the sitemap.
• Use breadcrumb navigation on your website so that users can always see where they are on your site and easily navigate back to previous pages.
• Internal linking is also essential for website navigation, so make sure to link to other substantially similar pages on your site from each page.
• Use descriptive meta descriptions and titles for each page on your website so that users can find your pages easily when searching online.
• Ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly so direct users can easily access it from any device.
Don’t create multiple websites
Multiple sites can hurt your chances of ranking because Google could see them as the same content. If you’re trying to rank for the same keyword with different keyword variations, it might make sense to have multiple sites. But stick to one website if you’re trying to target different keywords with the same overall topic.
Conclusion
Creating doorway pages is not an effective way to increase traffic to your website and improve your website’s ranking in search results.
In digital marketing, such as SEO, it is essential to be mindful of what can hurt your SEO. Using doorway pages is a bad idea. Website owners should be responsible for removing doorway pages if found and ensure traffic after removing them.
Suppose you want to ensure that your website has high levels of traffic. In that case, focus on creating pages with high-quality content and ensuring your site is well-designed and easy to navigate to improve user experience.