What to do with lots of doorway domains?

[onlinesource]

I've added lots of doorway domains over the years and I'm not sure if their presence is helping or hurting the site which they all link to?

I did this before because years ago it seemed like SEO friendly domains ranked very well, so I purchased a lot and turned them into blogs with related content. On each were banner ads pushing people to my main site.

Think of an electronics store that sells dvd players, flat screen tvs, etc online. He wants to rank for "dvd players" and "flat screen tvs" but he can't, so he makes "dvdplayers.tld" and "flatscreentvs.tld" as blogs with relevant content to rank for those keywords and in turn, push traffic to his main electronic shop.

I know this method was popular years ago. I myself bought up a lot of domains.

Now, it seems like my doorway domains rank well but my main site has suffered because of them.

I feel as if Google will only let one of my sites ranks for specific keywords and if it feels one of my doorway domains is better suited, then that domain will rank for a particular keyword, while my main domain will struggle to rank for that same keyword.

I had two ideas.

1. Just delete these doorway domains and pretend they never existed. I'm hesitant because they rank very well and seem to have some juice. Seems silly to just throw them away.
2. Add other external links to sites besides more (even competitors), so it doesn't seem like I show any favoritism to myself. I'm hoping Google would view the blog as a reference site, more than a doorway domain to drive traffic to myself. Sure, it helps others more and me less but in the end, would it help?

Curious to get opinions.

PS: a lot of the sites are hosted on blogger sites. None of them share the same server.
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[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 1:19 am (utc) on Sep 12, 2014]
[edit reason] changed .com examples to .tld, in case these domains actually exist [/edit]

[tangor]

PS: a lot of the sites are hosted on blogger sites. None of them share the same server.

But all of them, in some way or another, link back to YOU (the webmaster, the name in charge, the Creator, etc.)?

How many doorways? Try shutting a few to see if that will help the One Domain (spectral voice implied) where you want the traffic to go. (You do realize that the number of folks clinking on links in articles is growing LESS, not MORE?)

Or, turn those ranking sites into money makers...

The original concept of doorway pages has passed... and if these pages are actually ranking, then figure out why. Do it more and better, and move on.

I play in three bands (musician) in Jazz, Rock and Western. Guess which one makes the most over time? Which pays best (per gig). Which pays humongous twice a year? Guess what? All pay.

Might find a way to do the same with your pages... Good luck!

[Collieman]

Hello
We have a similar issue. About 5 years ago a site had poor cms capabilities and we wanted to expand what we offered the visitor. So we created maybe 40+ wordpress.com blogs. All linked from the main site with text like "read more here" and all linking back
The blogs all used same theme and were clearly identified as an extension of main site.
There was no link building to the blogs - why should we- they were for the user and written to serve existing customers not get new ones.
When Penguin arrived we split the blogs as follows

Information - how to look after a widget - these we orphaned. Cut the link from the main site.Killed all links either way. These blogs are useful but we think most will whither and die so will be deleted.

Specific - about a widget but a minor widget. Killed all links to the blog. But either no follow back to main site or mention main site in text ( citation not clickable). Again these blogs are shrivelling and will probably eventually be deleted

The two categories above number say 40 blogs in all

Then we have the really good blogs - maybe 5 to 10. These are substantial resources and in some cases 50+ pages. We have left the links both ways but the majority of the links from blogs back to main site are no followed. Some links are followed but not optimised anchor text.

What we then did with the "brand widget" blog was this:

The market we live in has some big/important players who say
1.You pay for a banner link/site wide
2. Or stick one of our widgets on your site and we will mention / link back.

The links are followed - the visitors use them - in numbers that exceed adwords - and we all win but it is not Penguin friendly.

So we wrote specific landing pages within the brand blog and directed all the incoming 3rd party links there. Visitors like it as the pages are specifically written and answer their questions. So far Google likes it and the blog traffic is growing.

Will Penguin like it? No - but if and when a penalty arrives it will be the blog that suffers - i hope.

Thank you for reading

[onlinesource]

So, what is everybody's suggestion? If I keep the website, for instance... dvdplayers.tld should I remove all of the urls on that site to my main site or simply toss up a banner in the sidebar with a nofollow link, back to my main site?

I guess it's no different than any blog that wants to make $$$ off of banner ads, right?

[onlinesource]

I'm wondering also if i should just remove it and redirect the traffic to my main site? take the link juice for dvdplayers.tld, which ranks well for "dvd players", and send it all to myshop.tld/dvd-players.html?

[onlinesource]

If anybody could help me, I'd appreciate it. Wondering if I should burn my old doorway domain to the ground or somehow use it to benefit me?

[aakk9999]

Can you take the best content from one of domains, use it to create a good page on the main domain and redirect there? Do it with one domain and monitor what happens with your traffic/ranking and then make a decision what to do with the rest?

I certainly would not do them all in one go anyway - too risky.