Are Gateway Pages Dead?

Did G kill gateway page indexing?

[dynamicwebs]

Hey all... just curious. All my sites I've developed using proper gateway pages have been killed/removed from all "G" indexing.

Did "G" ban/remove gateway pages from their indexing?

I've notice that only pages with no meta information which are true/relevant pages show up in the "G" indexing and all gateway pages have been removed.

Any opinions?

[werty]

from [google.com...]

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

[John_Creed]

What do you mean that your proper gateway pages have been removed? Whats your definition of a gateway page?

[pageoneresults]

If they were orphaned then they are most likely out of the index. If there were many pages all somewhat identical with a few words changed here and there, they are most likely out of the index. You may see these types of pages appear sporadically, but they usually end up out of the index in a short period of time.

I'm interested in knowing what a Proper Gateway Page is too! ;)

[dynamicwebs]

I created pages for each state and named appropriately - ohio.html. Each page is then given an appropriate title and modest amount of descriptors. Then on the main page, which is blank, I insert a SSI for the index.html page. The final ohio.html page inserts the home page of the site and replaces the title and descriptions to coincide with the state page.

Thus, it appears as though the page for the state is relevant to that state.

Example - "Company Name - Ohio website designers" - Ohio would get replaced with each state associated to that state page, but would show the home page (index.html) page for the content.

For many years this worked out just fine, since I never loaded the page with false info, nor redirected. It simply pulled in content from another page.

I still have positioning on many search engines for these types of pages. However, "G" has removed all of my pages for most of my sites.

Any thoughts.

[dynamicwebs]

Actually, many of my pages have been removed which relate to the state pages. However, city pages which I created for the state where my business resides still continue to be indexed and provide top 10 placement!

Why would the states pages be removed and not my city pages. Could competition have anything to do with it? Many of the sites which have the state GW pages removed are National sites... meaning they are directories which sell services to individuals across the USA.

Thoughts?

[dynamicwebs]

I've also noticed that many of the pages I created which are heavy on meta tag info rank much worse or have been dropped compared to pages with no meta info, other than title and description.

[BigDave]

My thoughts are "thank god google removed all thos duplicate pages"

[dynamicwebs]

So, if gw pages are dead or "G" is removing them. How is a National directory site - with listings in every state supposed to get indexed?

I guess we developers will actually have to put content in those states.

With the "buyers" it all comes down to the chicken before the egg theory. I'll list once I see my area in the directories.

[pageoneresults]

How is a National directory site - with listings in every state supposed to get indexed?

Gateway Pages in the traditional sense have been dead for quite some time. There is a new style of Gateway Page out there and it is referred to as Good/Great Original Content.

In regards to another directory of website designers, good luck. Directory sites are very difficult to promote in this day and age. When PageRank became public, directory sites rose 1,000 fold. Everyone who wanted to influence PR set up a directory in hopes of powering their main sites. It worked for a little while but I now think we are seeing that strategy end up in the SEO Strategy Graveyard.

Don't get me wrong, you can still build your directory, but if it does not offer anything substantive or unique from the rest of the directories out there, you will be constantly fighting an uphill battle in getting G to properly index it.

[notsosmart]

[delurking]

I also have many, many "state pages" on several domains. The big difference is, they are all written from scratch, with unique content, etc. They are still in the index.

IMO, the poster's definition of "proper gateway page" is akin to another's "legal cloaking" or "reasonable hidden text".

[Brian]

My feeling is that with the latest update, brief somewhat spammy pages that no nothing but point traffic to significant content will be back bigtime.

Practically all of my significant content has gone with the latest update, with my least useful, briefest and most keyword-intense pages prioritized instead.

Terrible.

[mfishy]

notsosmart,

There is certainly legitimate reasons for both cloaking and hidden text.

Google, MSN, and AOL all cloak.

WebamsterWorld has a forum for cloaking.

Others have discussed recently their use of hidden text for legitimate reasons.

[kittykat]

i have doorway/gateway pages that seem to have gotten grey barred but are still in the index. does this mean that they are on the way out?

what percentage of "unique" content is required to get back in, if these pages do get banned?

i am hoping that 1) adding more unique content to each page from my database 2) reducing the amount of duplicate content on these pages. should this do the trick?