Links from My Own Content Sites a Problem?

Are they considered doorway pages?

[J_Mac]

Several years ago i developed several websites for the sole purpose of ranking for specific keywords/phrases and directing traffic to my ecommerce website.

Well since June i have experienced a huge loss in traffic to my ecommerce site and i am wondering if these content sites may be part of the problem.

Are they considered doorway pages? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[martinibuster]

Probably. Not necessarily a penalty though. Could be just ranking where you should rank if those kinds of links (controlled etc.) stopped counting.

[austtr]

developed several websites for the sole purpose of ranking

Think about it.... you created the links, they were not freely given, they were created solely for SEO/ranking puproses.

All of the above is manipulative and that is what Google has been targeting. In short... if you can create it yourself, Google will consider the links as cr*p and either ignore them or hand you a penalty.

[martinibuster]

All of the above is manipulative and that is what Google has been targeting.

It's been a long strange trip, hasn't it? There was a time not so long ago when reciprocal links were considered a white hat strategy...

It's probably a good idea to get rid of the links you control.

[J_Mac]

Thanks guys, since they do drive traffic that converts to sales should i add nofollow to the links to still benefit from the traffic, but no suffer any kind of penalty? Would this be a solution?

[martinibuster]

That is one way to solve the problem of links causing a possible penalty, if that's the problem. But that leaves another potential problem in place. It perpetuates the issue of a network of sites for the purpose of directing traffic to another site. Not considered a recommended tactic either.

[scooterdude]

I am curious, about the quote below. Assuming all the interlinks are no followed, why would Google have an issue with sites encouraging their visitors to visit a sister site ?

Have they made a comment regarding this, explicitly ?

That is one way to solve the problem of links causing a possible penalty, if that's the problem. But that leaves another potential problem in place. It perpetuates the issue of a network of sites for the purpose of directing traffic to another site. Not considered a recommended tactic either.

[martinibuster]

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721311?hl=en

Doorway pages
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.

...Some examples of doorways include:

•Having multiple domain names targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page

[scooterdude]

I see what you mean.

However, can the OP confirm the bit below applies :)

large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword

[J_Mac]

Of the 4 sites i am talking about 3 of them are fairly poor content as they were written around 10 years ago. One of them however is good quality content that was written about 3 years ago.