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Can someone explain how a gateway site works and why this is ok to do. sounds like spamming.
Gateway pages can differ depending on who is designing them and their personal views on them.
Gateway pages, doorway pages, entrance pages, hallway pages, etc....they are all pretty much the same for the most part. They are pages designed with the intent to rank well in the search engines and usually do not contain very much, if any, actual content that is of value to the user.
One company in particular guarantees results. I dont understand how they can do this if search engines dont like it.
I would like to understand how these pages work as they might be useful in the future. is there a resource somewhere with an in depth explaination?
My understanding of gateway pages are pages you have deliberately designed within your site to address a particular set of keywords using normal optimisation techniques. Is this how they would do it? or is it a separate site that redirects, if so how do they get away with it everytime?
still unhappy about this, dont like the thought of someone being able to beat me without spending hours optimising their sites. its just not cricket ( unless i can do it as well):) if i can then game on!;)
Gateway pages can differ depending on who is designing them and their personal views on them.
There are different varieties of gateway or doorway sites or pages, done in a number of different ways.
>>>I would like to understand how these pages work as they might be useful in the future. is there a resource somewhere with an in depth explaination?<<<
There probably won't be in depth explanations available anywhere on all methods, to a good degree because those who successfully utilize them are unlikely to share how they do it. Some things are considered trade secrets, and won't be divulged, especially since others could then emulate their methods. Then they would stop being successful for them. That's one of the things people research - figuring out how certain things are done when they find them.
Some companies create doorway pages or domains that they own and control and send traffic to client sites as long as the clients continue to pay. Some may not like this, but to a degree it's very fair, since some clients sign up, get what they can and run, giving the SEO companies a raw deal. This method prevents that, in addition to which if any risky methodologies are used it lessens the risk to the client.
A classic, safe way to do doorway or gateway pages is to create additional, highly focused and targeted content pages right on web sites that become part of the site and increase its value as well as rankings. This is better for the client, but not necessarily better for an SEO working on the site.
Anyone can do this, it's perfecly legitimate and valuable; it's just good SEO. Information about optimization is readily available. Countless people have related that they knew nothing to begin with, and after participating and studying here at WebmasterWorld for several months achieved outstanding success with their sites. Not everyone will tell everything they know, which is perfectly understandable, but there's certainly enough so that anyone who works at it can get good rankings.
dvduval's list for assessing external gateway sites is excellent. To add one thing, though:
2) Seem to be mostly geared toward search results?
3) are one-page sites with very little content?
There are multi-page sites set up for that very reason as well as one page sites - also geared toward search results, some designed to support and elevate rankings for client sites. Those are a slightly different matter, and when they're found they just have to be studied to see how they're doing it. Some endure for a long time, while others last just until they step across the line and get caught.
The point of these doorway pages are that you can create a doorway page for each of your keywords. So you can have 50 or 100 doorway pages with diffent targetted keywords all redirecting to your main page.
I don't use doorways any more, but i do use some of the tecniques that they use to rank high.
[edited by: agerhart at 3:33 pm (utc) on Oct. 24, 2002]
[edit reason] removed URL [/edit]
(BRAND NAME) is the undisputed leader in search engine optimisation methodologies that GUARANTEES you top ranking in the search engines under key phrases that your potential customers will key into the search engines. Using proprietary technology and 6 years` experience of what works with search engines we create hidden "(BRAND NAME) sites" that concentrate on your top phrases and that re-direct users automatically to your web site.
How does it work
We update our central system EVERY DAY to reflect the latest criteria used by all the major search engines. Our proprietary software (BRAND NAME) then re-generates every single one of our customers` (BRAND NAME) sites, yours included, so that they are permanently optimised to achieve top ranking. When the user clicks on the search engines` link to your (BRAND NAME) site they are forwarded straight to your MAIN WEB SITE, using unique cloaking technology, undetectable by search engines.
the undisputed leader in search engine optimisation methodologies that GUARANTEES you top ranking
"methodologies that GUARANTEES..."
You'd think a grammatical error like that would be pretty rare, but if you do a Google search for the phrase above you might be surprised how many "undisputed leaders" there actually are.
Gee, how can they all of those companies each be the undisputed leader?
We update our central system EVERY DAY to reflect the latest criteria used by all the major search engines.
Sorry, the search engines don't change their criteria every day.
using unique cloaking technology, undetectable by search engines.
Sorry, the search engines, and many SEOs and techies, are definitely able to detect cloaking.
The above paragraph is nothing but a semi-well written sales pitch to sign you into a deal that is essentially going to cheat you out of your money.
No search mayor search engine i know bannes for use of those automatic redirects.
agerhart is very true, good money making phrase for dummie webmasters.
They achieve good reults but i cant see if they are using redirects. I have type in the url into google and looked at the linking sites but i cant see anything that indicates a doorway page? would these pages show up on the links page?
this site has a good pr rating and is optimised well. Do you think that this is the main reason for the high level of traffic and not these mysterious hidden sites.
can you hide sites that redirect so they dont show up as links to a website?
Checking an individual ranking just shows you where it is today - it may not be there tomorrow.
is the undisputed leader in search engine optimisation methodologies that GUARANTEES you top ranking in the search engines
This is so COOL!
this site has a good pr rating and is optimised well. Do you think that this is the main reason for the high level of traffic and not these mysterious hidden sites.can you hide sites that redirect so they dont show up as links to a website?
Just copy & paste the first quote into Google. They are the "undisputed leader in search engine optimisation" simply because they say so, over and over again.
Special note: this thread is ranked 6th obviously because of your original post, pretty quick, eh!
With my quote the thread should be boosted to #1.
It appears that they have taken all the keywords from their clients site and entered them into a database.
They have then used the database to create a webpage for every keyword phrase which are then hosted on the phantom site
The title of the page refers to the page name and then returns the list of the top 5 keywords that are "like" the title. for example if the page is called 12_widget.htm then the title contains the top five phrases that are simialr from the database " 12_widgets, 12/14 widgets, 12 widge, widgets".
The same database query is done for the keywords metatags with all included in the text in order of relevance to the title
this could have been done manually but i doubt it as there are a lot of pages and all are different.
all of the pages contains a redirect to the clients proper website at the top and a blank table just below that forces 100% height ( showing a blank white screen with a loader)Below the table is a list of links to every keyword titled page. the links are of the google tasty variety.
<A href="12_widgets.htm" alt ="12_widgets">12 widgets</a>
In this case there are about 100 pages thus 100 links in a big long list. at the bottom of the list is a small descriptive passage of visible text describing the client.
Heres where it gets even weirder. at the bottom there is what appears to be an unformatted navigation table with a list of links such as:
about us
contact Us
Directions
NONE of these links works they refer to pages called there respective titles in the root directory but they dont exist
Also contained within the text of the table is a Tbody tag which holds a copy of all links and text already on the page.
I entered a search in google for "12 widgets" and Roberts your mothers brother, this phantom site appears on the first page with a description of the clients site. if you click on the link you get directed to the clients site.
I entered the phantom site domain in full into google and it returns not known.
HERE COME THE QUESTIONS:
1) why has google not identified these pages as spam?
2) is the phony navigation menu designed to trick google?
3) how comes google has listed this site but doesnt know it exists when url entered in full?
4) is this not blatant spamming?
5) the whole site contains nothing but links to other pages of links all with a redirect at the top designed to pass on the visitor before he sees the list of links. Do you think google is aware of this?
I am interested in what is consdiered bad practice and what is not. if this type of site is acceptable then fairplay. If this company has just beaten to SE and is likely to get caught i dont want anything to do with it, unless the result is only the phantom site gets caught and banned and not the main website. in your opinion what is likely to be the end result?
I don't think that there is any 'yes' or 'no' answer to this one. It would seem that this method of getting a higher ranking does work.
The fact that there are companies out there offering this service must mean that the SE does not penalise this sort of behaviour, (at least in the short term).
The question you should ask yourself is what you gain from doing it, and what you could loose if the SE does penalise your site.
In my opinion it would be the Phantom site that would get banned. However it would only be a short step to see who is behind the Phantom site, the question is would the SE take this step?
maybe Googleguy could answer ths one?
what i woeuld gain from being on the front page for about 150 keyword phrases is a shed load of traffic, more leads generated, perhaps a payrise and from one of my revenue generating sites pots of money. The downside would be getting all of my sites banned from the search engines resulting in the loss of my job and bankruptcy.
Its a hard decision, think i will research a heap more before i decide either way.
still would like someone's help with all my earlier queries
TIA
If you can get a big enough pot of money in 30-60 days to retire, you may want to try it, otherwise you may be "retired" a bit too soon. Most of the big "strategies" fail within one or two updates.
It's much better to just create solid content for your users, the search engine traffic typically follows.
1) why has google not identified these pages as spam?
2) is the phony navigation menu designed to trick google?
3) how comes google has listed this site but doesnt know it exists when url entered in full?
4) is this not blatant spamming?
5) the whole site contains nothing but links to other pages of links all with a redirect at the top designed to pass on the visitor before he sees the list of links. Do you think google is aware of this?
1) Quite clearly they don't catch everything... I'd think that at least the pages on the "phantom sites" certainly meet the definition of spam.
2) Probably. Gives the pages some outgoing links so they appear to be integrated into an actual site.
3) The pages are listed. Search at google for "+www.example_phantom_domain.co.uk" (including both the quotes and the plus sign and using the real domain name, of course) and you'll see the listing -- and the keyword stuffing (not just on-topic keywords, but various unrelated popular celebrity names) will be clear.
4) It is.
5) I think Google is aware that sites containing "nothing but links to other pages of links all with a redirect at the top" exist. Their practice has typically been to adjust the algorithms to deal with these types of things, not to react against specific sites. Until this has been identified as a major problem it'll probably slip by sometimes. These guys are doing a good job at it (check out the cached version after doing what I described in #3), but I wouldn't count on them staying under the radar forever.
