Doorway Page
A doorway page is a web page specifically created to rank highly in search engine results for particular search queries with the intention of redirecting visitors to a different page.
Description
In digital marketing, doorway pages are often used as a tactic to manipulate search engine rankings. These pages are designed to attract search engine traffic for specific keywords and then redirect visitors to another site or page. Although they might appear to be genuine content pages, they usually provide little to no valuable information and are primarily used as a bridge to funnel users to a more relevant or desired page. Search engines like Google penalize websites that use doorway pages, as they create a poor user experience and can be considered a form of spamming. The ultimate goal for using doorway pages is to artificially inflate the visibility of a website in search engine results, thereby increasing traffic. However, this practice is against the guidelines of most search engines and can lead to severe penalties, including being removed from search engine indexes altogether.
Examples
- A real estate company creates multiple pages targeting different neighborhoods, each page stuffed with keywords but ultimately redirecting users to the main property listing page.
- An e-commerce site sets up several pages with slightly different URLs, each optimized for various product-related keywords, but all leading to the same product category page.
Additional Information
- Search engines like Google actively discourage the use of doorway pages and may penalize websites that employ this tactic.
- Creating useful, high-quality content on your main pages is a more sustainable and ethical approach to improving search engine rankings.