Doorway sites on AdWords

Does google consider it spam?

[Monkscuba]

Hi,

Apologies for what I am sure is an obvious question.

I have noticed a competitor has registered a whole bunch of domains which are all the same except for the last word.

(Example) The main web site is widgets.com, but he has now registered domains such as

widgets-usa.com
widgets-france.com
widgets-spain.com
widgets-jamaica.com

you get the picture? ALL of these are doorway pages with links only back to the main widgets site. I can understand from a company protecting it's trademark point of view, BUT these doorway sites are appearing in AdWords, which I suspect is not allowed, right?

Is that correct? And if so, who do I email about it?

Thank you so much and Merry Christmas (or simply Happy Holidays if you prefer)

[edited by: Monkscuba at 1:39 am (utc) on Dec. 20, 2006]

[Leosghost]

um the domain name you used actually exists ( that is someone owns it but there is no site there )..perhaps you might like to use "widgets.com" nif your edit button works ..or the admins might pull your post and you wont get an answer ..:)

FWIW ..I think adwords doesnt allow doorway pages or redirects ..

probably the contact point at the top right of this page
[adwords.google.com...]

( You'll have to copy and paste that link as this board doesnt like some https links to be live..)

Is where maybe you would notify suspected breach of policy guidelines ..

[edited by: Leosghost at 1:39 am (utc) on Dec. 20, 2006]

[Monkscuba]

widgets it is, then, though bananas taste better.

[kea12345]

It is against the TOS. I would email Adwords support, might not be the best place, but it would be where I would start.

[Pengi]

Could this be a legitimate attempt to provide content that is tailored to specific geographical areas?

If I had a site with a number of pages of content writtin in UK English with Ad Campaigns targetted at the UK, should there be any problem (at least from a Terms and Conditions or Moral Perspective) if I copied the site to a new domain name, edited the Language to be US English (say) and set up a similar Ad Campaign targeted at the US?

I don't know if this is what the original poster has seen, but it seems a reasonable thing to do IMHO.