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Now, in truth there is a range of meanings depending on who is using the phrase! Basically, don't use them since it is considered spamming by all the search engines.
The key always to good findability is having pages with excellent content that have your keywords in the legitimate content of your page and your site.
As Terry_Plank described them, they are "highly optimized pages for targeted keywords". That's a key for good Search Engine Marketing - AND good communication.
Keep pages focused on one specific area rather than creating a "grab bag". As you discover new topics (and therefore related keywords and phrases) that would interest your target audience - create those pages, and keep them focused.
The thing to avoid is the "not actually a part of your site" business. That is, historically doorway pages did not have inbound navigation from the rest of the site. Also they only offered the visitor one outbound link - although they often offered that one link many times, with many variations in link text.
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Whoops! I forgot my manners. Welcome to the WebmasterWorld forums, Terry.
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You have to be careful with it, but we one way to convert your thinking away from Doorway Pages and still address legitimate needs to inform search engines that your site has information that users are searching for, is to create Information Pages.
To me, Information Pages means that if, for some reason, a site doesn't have some content pages that include keyword phrases that actually relate to the product or services, then I create some new pages for the site. I make them a part of my navigational structure, make sure they are good content for visitors to my site and target some legitimate keyword phrases related to my products and services, and optimize them appropriately to emphasize the keyword.
Having special articles, a glossary or some pages of term definitions is one way to help visitors and yourself by generating traffic through Information Pages.
That's exactly how I do them. They're doorways in the sense of being an entry point to the site from search engines, but they're perfectly legitimate additions to the site based on study of what potential visitors are likely to be looking for, so they have value in addition to increasing relevancy for the site.
I've also successfully used external pages for sites that could be considered "doorways" from a broad perspective because they do bring traffic by being targeted to specific user needs, but those are also quite legitimate because they'll be tightly integrated into the content of the other site, relevant to the rest of the site and included in the navigation just as any other content page would be, and they're topically and thematically relevant to both sites.
Over time, these pages each took on a life of their own and evolved into topical mini-sites of 3 to 10 pages. Most even acquired their own "immediate response" mechanisms for quick conversions, rather than just sending the visitor into the main web site.
Then we said "Hey, these sections are a really good asset. Why restrict them to just our PPC visitors?"
A little work with site navigation and we had a "Special Topics" directory that integrated these mini-sites into the original site. In some cases the original PPC campaign was even dropped after some more on-page optimization, because the pages began to do well with "free" traffic.
It started out very much along the lines of a doorway page. But because the organization was investing significant funds here, they dedicated significant resources to developing good content. So the materials we developed were strong and they converted very well.
If the rest of the site had that kind of energy going into it, WOW would they have a presence on the Search Engines.
Not at all. There is a wide range of opinions on what a doorway page is. The basic one above is as close as we get to generic usage. (eg: just a page optimized for a se with the specific intention of ranking well under a kw and acts as a "doorway" to your site).
> there is a range of meanings depending on
> who is using the phrase
Exactly. When the se's use doorway page, they generally mean keyword ladden pages that push the envelope of their TOS.
Are doorway pages acceptable?
Sure. As long as you paid for the inclusion, most of the se's won't even argue with you. Some will even tell you what you have to do to get the page to rank higher. Or, even allow you to have a cloaked spam fest with XML via so called trusted feeds.
When most SEO's talk about doorway pages, we generally mean a page that has been optimized for an SE and intended as the "doorway" to your site for a specific set of kw's.
Basically, the phrase "doorway" page has become so obfuscated, that you have to ask for clarification when someone uses it. you mean auto generated kw stuffed pages, or just a site entry point?
