What Is A Doorway Page?

Date First Published: 3rd September 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 6/10

Learn more about what a doorway page is in this article.

A doorway page, also known as a gateway page, bridge page, jump page, or portal page, is a webpage that is stuffed with keywords in order to trick search engines into thinking that it has high-quality content when it actually has content of little value for users. Doorway pages are designed to rank for specific and similar search queries and once searchers click on the result, they may be directed to a page with almost the same content or redirected to a completely different page that is irrelevant to their original search. Doorway pages are created with the sole intention of ranking high for certain keywords in SERP pages and manipulating the search engine ranking of pages in order to generate website traffic. They are a form of spamdexing and a black hat SEO technique.

When performing a search, several search results might sometimes come up from the same website with almost the same content. That is an example of a doorway page and is considered a form of spam.

Note:

They are called doorway pages because they provide extra doorways into a website without providing any unique content to the user.

Examples Of Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are created for search engines rather than users. Examples of doorway pages include:

• Creating multiple similar pages of the same content in the search results, where each result takes users to the same destination, or almost identical versions of the same page, which are not as useful as the original page. Each page is individually indexed and the website owner tries to offer more doorways into their website without creating any more unique content.
• Multiple domain names or pages that target specific geographical locations and redirect visitors to one page. It is likely that multiple pages for different geographical locations contain similar, or identical information. Instead of having separate pages for every location to capture website traffic, website owners can consider having one page and include all locations within it in order to avoid penalisation.
• Keyword-stuffed pages that forcibly redirect users to a page unrelated to what they were looking for using JavaScript. This deceives users and can take them to a page different than expected by disguising the true content.
• Spam pages excessively filled with ads and affiliate links that only direct users to other webpages.

Do Doorway Pages Result In Penalisation?

Doorway pages are against Google Webmaster Guidelines and can result in websites getting penalised. As a result, they will appear lower in the index or even be completely removed. It is definitely a black hat SEO technique as it involves spamming the SERP page. Using doorway pages is not a recommended practice and does not offer any positive results in the long term. Some webmasters use doorway pages in the hope of driving more organic traffic to their websites, but it will have the opposite effect when they receive a search engine penalty.

How To Avoid Doorway Pages?

Since doorway pages can lead to penalties by search engines, they should be avoided. Avoiding the following can help prevent doorway pages:

• Duplicate content.
• Creating multiple websites with identical content to increase rankings for certain keywords, unless the services or content differ a lot on each domain.
• Registering multiple domain names or creating multiple pages for different locations with identical content on each one.
• Keywords that are unrelated to the content of the page.
• Pages that repeat content from other pages and provide no unique value to users.

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