What Are Doorway Pages and Why Are They Unethical?

What are doorway pages and why are they so named? Why are they unethical? Read on even if you don’t want to enter the room in question.

Doorway pages are web pages that have been created for the sole purpose of spamming the index of a search engine by inserting unwanted results (sending users to a different page than intended). They are also known by other names but as Shakespeare once said about roses, well, you know the rest. Stay away from bridge pages, portal pages, zebra pages, jump, gateway and entry pages.

Doorway pages are very easy to identify because they are designed not for human users but rather for search engines. Sometimes a doorway page may be copied from another high-ranking page, but if the search engines discover it, that page will be excluded from search engine listing as a duplicate. If you click through to a doorway page from a search engine results page, usually you will be redirected to another page via a META refresh command.

Due to the fact that search engines penalize the use of META refresh commands, some doorway pages use the ruse of having the user click on a link to get to the desired destination. More sophisticated doorway pages, known as “content rich doorways,” do not use the ploy of redirection to gain high placement in search engine results. Their appearance is more user friendly and natural and they call on visitors to click on standard links as “calls to action.” This accrues traffic, which is directed within the context of pay-per-click campaigns.

Get help with setting up an ethical SEO program. Understand the pitfalls. Avoid falling into an unethical trap either by inadvertently receiving or emitting doorway pages.