Affiliate Sites Considered 'Doorway' marketing?

Original Content Site Lowered in Ranking

[samwise]

Hi,

Are Affiliate sites considered doorway pages by Google?

I've read an article about 'doorway' pages and am concern that my site falls into this category. The site I'm concerned with has original content and product reviews but is ranking very poorly in Google. Each page has the product discription etc... and a link that takes them to the main site for purchase.

For a number of years it was doing ok until Feb 2

Thank you for your comments

[jcoronella]

If they don't add significant value, they are doorways.

More than just doorways, Google considers them to be the scourge of the internet.

Google seems to punish only the doorway though, and not nec. the merchant in most cases - at least I haven't seen a merchant punished unless they created the doorways themselves.

[Jakpot]

"Google considers them to be the scourge of the internet."

Please direct me to Google's policy statement
or their stated views on affiliates web pages.
Thanks

[annej]

Each page has the product discription etc... and a link that takes them to the main site for purchase.

How extensive are your reviews?

[jcoronella]

I was referring to affiliate sites that do not add significant value, which is synonymous with a doorway IMHO. Certainly there are a lot of sites that host affiliate ads including yahoo and msn, and lots that add value.

To the best of my knowledge, Google has made no public statments specifically about affiliate web pages, however, you can see mention of doorway pages here: [google.com...]

[Jakpot]

jcoronella,

Thanks for the Google reference.

The reference was to "doorway" pages loaded with
keywords and hidden links to other sites designed by SEO's.

There was no value judgement by Google regarding doorway pages per se.

I don't use doorway pages.

However, when I see a statement referring to a Google position or policy I want to read the Google document.

[jcoronella]

Another quick look, and we have an explicit reference to affiliate and doorway pages:

# Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

[google.com...]

Seems to me they are lumping affiliate pages without origional content into the same group as doorway pages ( a bit obvious IMHO ).

[reseller]

jcoronella

<Seems to me they are lumping affiliate pages without origional content into the same group as doorway pages ( a bit obvious IMHO ).>

And its absolutely fair and correct to consider them (pages that don't add value) as such; doorways.

Affiliates are expected to function as resellers creating their own PRE-SELL pages promoting the merchants products/services. Unfortunately most affiliates promote affiliate programs either by creating banners farms, or just copy/cut/paste little contents from the merchants sites.

Its also therefore, IMHO, that 95% of affiliates aren't generating sales and accordingly aren't really earning any money.

[europeforvisitors]

# Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

That makes perfect sense, because Google's stated corporate mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible." Doorway and other cookie-cutter pages just make it harder for Google to fulfill that mission.

FWIW, I can think of one pure affiliate site in the hotel category that does a great job of adding value--which is probably why it does so well in Google's SERPs.