Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected doorway pages!

[alahamdan]

Hello

I received a message with title " Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected doorway pages"

As far as i know we are following guidelines, and i didn't make any significant changes to the website recently!, it my first time hearing the term doorway pages!

I searched and i understood what it means and we don't have such type of pages, and no pages violating guidelines.

we have no Malwares hosted by the website (at least GWT not reporting any).

So what shall i do now?, i sent a reconsideration request stating that i don know what is against guidelines, so:

1- Since when Google are sending warnings? its my first time hearing that, this is automated or manual? could be a mistaken automated message?

2- if its not mistaken, after my reconsideration request , there is any hope any one of Google reply with violations so i can remove them? or there is no chance?

3- If its your website what will you do? if you got this message before, what you did and what happened then?

Thanks in advance

[tedster]

As far as I know, these are automated messages.Google has had webmaster messages inside WebmasterTools for along time now - and sometimes they even try to reach webmasters and owners through regular email.

Have you figured what there is about your site that might trigger this perception? And, have you been penalized?

[alahamdan]

Hi tedster,

no i didn't figure the problem yet!, and im not penalized (site:example.com , site name search, and paragraph search) all show the right results, and no drop in traffic, i assume im not penalized yet!

i tried to search for the message we got to see if any got same message before, and looks like there are no one getting same message (many received different messages with specific links for pages in violation) .

i sent a reconsideration request and i will wait to see what will happen.do you think there is a chance they email me with specific pages in violation?

[tedster]

Well, a doorway page is a page that exists only to link to or promote other pages. It offers no real value or content of its own for the visitor.

You know your site best, so put on your thinking cap. This message could have been triggered if the spider sees a page whose spiderable content looks like that. Such a page would not be integrated into the site navigation - it would only exist outside the structure and link in to your main pages.

If your rankings have not suffered I would have no concern for the message unless you can think of a page or pages on your site that fit the description I gave. If you do have pages like that, then either delete them or make them more useful for the visitor and integrate them more into the rest of the website.

As far as a reconsideration request - there's nothing to reconsider if your rankings have not been damaged.

[alahamdan]

Hello and thanks again for reply

i think i need to provide the message content, since it may not be only related to the doorway pages, even its titled with doorway pages content, here is the body of the message:

Dear site owner or webmaster of http://example.com/,

We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside our quality guidelines, which are available here: GOOGLE GUIDELINES PAGE Link

Specifically, your site may have what we consider to be doorway pages - groups of “cookie cutter” or low-quality pages. Such pages are often of low value to users and are often optimized for single words or phrases in order to channel users to a single location. For more information about doorway pages, see:

GOOGLE PAGE EXPLAINING DOORWAY PAGES AND JAVA REDIRECTS

We believe that doorway pages typically create a frustrating user experience, and we encourage you to correct or remove any pages that violate our quality guidelines. Once you’ve made these changes, please visit GWT Link: to submit your site for reconsideration in Google’s search results.

If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support: Google Support Forum Link
Sincerely,

Google Search Quality Team

So after seeing th whole message, this change any thing?

[aristotle]

If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support: Google Support Forum Link

Maybe you should follow this suggestion and visit the Google Support Forum. People there can look at your site and try to identify the cause of the problem.

[alahamdan]

Maybe you should follow this suggestion and visit the Google Support Forum. People there can look at your site and try to identify the cause of the problem.

I doubt i can spot the problem there, people will try to give suggestions, and Google employees rarely reply there. plus i don't want the website go public at least till i figure what the problem is! but thanks for the suggestion

[tedster]

That is clearly an automated message - and the most important word I see is "may": "pages may be using techniques..." and "your site may have...".

Do you have pages whose spiderable content is close to duplicate?
Do you have pages that exist only to promote other pages?
Do you have pages that use JavaScript to redirect to another URL? (or any other method that's not a 301/302)

Those are things you should fix.

[alahamdan]

Hi again,

I'm sorry to say, that yesterday i received another message from Google about doorway pages, but this time they listed some pages in the message.(Few hours later we are totally removed from index - all sub domains all folders!).

From the type of links they provided i think the problem is as the following (i wont post the website link since its prohibited, if allowed i can post it as a text not a link).

We are a chatting website, where we have 3 chat groups, Ar, En, Es, each group have a number of chat rooms.

the Ar group for example has 30 rooms, each for an Arabian country, like Egypt chat....etc.

We created a web page, for each chat room (each country), when u open the country chat room link you will see all chat rooms list (where the room you want listed with them), u click the room and ur in.

This is a flash chat, so basically, the chat server works like this, we dont have the option (at least for now to get u into the room directly (i asked for a customization for that already).

So do you think Google considered us as doorway pages because we are showing same rooms list? (we show different rooms list for different languages, and some times different chat skins too).

Pages consists of some navigation plus the chat rooms flash code, with a download flash player in /noscript part.

So what is the solution now? im thinking of the following:

1- On the flash side, to popup login box when chat load, then after sign in get you directly in the room page of the web page you entered from.(not to show you the chat rooms list)

2- change the design of chat pages, include some more html content, describing each chat room, list the room admins, and rules.

I know hundred of chatting websites use same navigation style, but they are still in the index, so to be honest im confused what shall i do next!?

Any comments or suggestions appreciated.

Thanks in Advance

[Mark_A]

Doorway pages usually link to the site but are not linked to from the site.

You might be able to just link to all these pages from the main site, and then they would not be doorway pages anymore.

[alahamdan]

I'm linking for those pages from the main site for sure, there is no one single page not linked in my links structure. im not hiding any pages!

The definition of doorway pages do not mention linking any way, they are defined as the following in Google webmasters central:

Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.

Whether deployed across many domains or established within one domain, doorway pages tend to frustrate users, and are in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines.

This is a very confusing area to get us removed from index. they could remove the suspicious pages (if they are really in violation), not the whole website, its a highly trafficked website with 4 years of no other violation history!,

im a straight guy, with WebmasterWorld my only SEO learning source, i wont try to manipulate search results or create such type of pages.

I'm confused thinking what to do, especially im not sure what is the reason!

[Mark_A]

I don't really know what to suggest. Hopefully someone will be along shortly with an answer for you.