June 4, 2008 update: Google fixed its doorway definition and Matt Cutts graciously acknowledged that this post helped persuade them to make the change.
Well, you’d think that with all their interaction and shoulder-to-shoulder partying with SEOs, spammers, and other low-life scum of the Web Googlers would have picked up by now what doorway pages are.
Instead, they offer this ridiculous tripe: “Doorway pages contain many links - often several hundred - that are of little to no use to the visitor, and do not contain valuable content.”
NOPE. That is absolutely wrong, completely wrong, and total crap.
Classic doorway pages may be cloaked or not cloaked. They may embed text in comments, meta tags, or white noise font colors but they don’t have to. The doorway’s only purpose is to get you from the search engine results page to the true destination site page.
Google’s snippet actually describes hallway pages (also sometimes called crawl pages): “A document consisting of links to other pages, provided for the sole purpose of giving crawlers (robots) links to follow.”
If there is one link on the page, it’s a doorway. If there are hundreds of links on the page, it’s a crawl page/hallway. That’s a fairly simple distinction and one should think just about anyone with a Web browser could grasp the concept.
If Google would stop fussing about links (all they have to do is disable ALL links’ ability to pass PageRank and anchor text) they could concentrate on improving the quality of their search results, which generally SUCK because they promote LESS RELEVANT content above MORE RELEVANT content.
Googlers, you clearly don’t know enough about doorway pages to be telling other people what they are. I strongly urge you to take down your phony explanation and do something to benefit the entire Web community: ALLOW THE MOST RELEVANT RESULTS TO RANK FIRST.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
jdeer19 01.24.08 at 12:22 pm
Be careful with any negative comments about Google. I just read this post today.
http://www.capecodseo.com/apparently-someone-at-google-has-a-twisted-sense-of-humor/
They (Googlers) could be lurking and reading your posts.
Michael Martinez 01.24.08 at 12:40 pm
They have lurked and commented here in the past. They’re free to comment or delist as they please.
It would be nice, however, if they would truly, honestly “level the playing field” as they are so fond of claiming.
I do not fear the search engine. Nor should the search engine fear me.
ehicks 01.24.08 at 1:49 pm
So, what’s the difference between a doorway page and a business directory? Is Yellowbook.com a doorway page, and would/should Google penalize them?
jexanalytics 01.24.08 at 9:26 pm
I’ve been calling them by their proper names for years, even before I heard the terms elsewhere and, if memory serves correctly, it was one of the regional Google guys that may have given me those terms.
Crazy eh?
Michael Martinez 01.25.08 at 8:25 am
ehicks: “So, what’s the difference between a doorway page and a business directory? Is Yellowbook.com a doorway page, and would/should Google penalize them?”
Michael: A doorway page has only one function: to rank highly enough in a search engine’s results (usually for only one keyword but some aggressive doorways go after multiple keywords) and to pass traffic on to a specific destination.
A business directory is a resource that people can use (and do use — I use business directory sites often, myself) to find useful information about companies (maybe only contact information, maybe financial information, maybe location information, etc.).
Doorway pages are not consumer facing content. They are only intended to be search facing — like the nofollow link attribute, doorway pages don’t help anyone but a single specific party.
ehicks 01.25.08 at 9:49 am
thanks for the clarification. Been reading your blog for a while now and I really appreciate the work you put into it.
Carlos 01.25.08 at 12:26 pm
I guess Google has better things to do than return solid results. I appreciate the sentiment that Google has made a major mis-step in the treatment of links, but I don’t think that has anything to do with Webmaster Central.
Michael Martinez 01.25.08 at 2:04 pm
Don’t even get me started on Webmaster Central, which I presently consider to be broken. At least, it’s not performing as well as I feel it should be.
All my sitemaps are “Pending”. What’s up with that?
Connie 01.25.08 at 3:11 pm
Just my 2 cents. First I disagree with your definaition of a doorway page. I’m not sure there is an industry standard on that definition. I have seen a lot of different explanations, as I’m sure you have.
My understanding of a doorway page was learned from people like Ken Envoy and Corey Rudl. A doorway page is created specifically for SEs. It is not a page included in your site navigation. In the best of circumstances a doorway page would never be seen by a site visitor. If the doorway page was seen by a actual person it would probably be a nice looking graphic with a click able link to the main site.
With my definition doorway pages used hidden text etc.
For more advanced users of doorway pages they would probably use cloaking to show SEs one page, and users another page.
I don’t see how you can compare doorway pages to Yellow Page listings any more than I would consider a listing in a directory as a doorway page.
Again by my definition of a doorway page there would be no links on the site to the doorway page.Incoming links to the doorway page would have to be done independently.
I have seen a lot of weird ideas about doorway pages. For the most part I still think it boils down to your definition of a doorway page.
Michael Martinez 01.26.08 at 7:38 pm
Connie: “First I disagree with your definaition of a doorway page.”
Michael: It’s not my definition. It’s an old school definition that was devised and in widespread use long before I ever learned what a doorway page was. Doorway pages lead to only one destination; crawl/hallway pages lead to many destinations.
Connie: “My understanding of a doorway page was learned from people like Ken Envoy and Corey Rudl. A doorway page is created specifically for SEs. It is not a page included in your site navigation. In the best of circumstances a doorway page would never be seen by a site visitor. If the doorway page was seen by a actual person it would probably be a nice looking graphic with a click able link to the main site.”
Michael: That is equally true of crawl pages, but the distinguishing feature is the purpose of the page. If the page is loaded with links, it’s a hallway or crawl page. If the page only leads to one destination, it’s a doorway (like a door leading into a room in a house).
suchmaschinenoptimierung 01.27.08 at 2:00 pm
i don´t think so - i think google know what doorway pages are, but the never react directly. they only waiting with the punish.
Michael Martinez 01.28.08 at 9:05 am
Well, look at it this way. Until they demonstrate a clear knowledge of what real doorway pages are, they’re in no position to be telling people what constitutes a doorway. Whether they can detect and filter or penalize true doorway pages is an entirely different issue.
Derek Edmond 01.28.08 at 6:10 pm
@jdeere19 - I noticed you referenced my post on the recent issues I’ve had with Google and the indexing of my site.
While I do appreciate the mention, I just want to point out that - as mentioned - the post was not based on fact and I indicated the doubt of “conspiracy theories” in relation to this issue.
I did receive and engage in some great discussion on Sphinn.com in relation to the issue - and am looking into a bit further to try to uncover what is/was going on.
I’m sure “Google” monitors conversations online about its’ search engine - but I don’t believe they remove websites based solely on a negative review.
@Michael Martinez - I don’t know why I haven’t been reading this blog before - it is definitely in my RSS reader and I hope to catch up on some great posts.
SEO Beratung 10.14.08 at 5:09 am
That’s the reason, why we only use white hat seo. Without exactly knowing, how Google detects doorway pages it’s really risky using this technique. Or does anyone here really know, how Google behaves on doorway pages?
Michael Martinez 10.14.08 at 9:29 am
Some types of doorway pages are fine with Google and the other search engines. However, because of a long history of abuse, most people shy away from talking about doorways.
I don’t advise clients to create doorway pages. I advise them to create pages that can receive traffic from a variety of sources and help people find what they are looking for. Sometimes, the clients create what I would deem to be acceptable content-rich doorway pages. Sometimes they create what I would deem to be more complex content.
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