Interesting Sales Technique

Got client to #5 on MSN in a week with no contract

[Jack_Frost]

I was kind of shocked yesterday when a potential client let me know that another company he had called earlier in the sales process had gotten his site the #5 ranking on MSN for his "favorite" search term.

Apparently he did this with a ghost page. I've never really liked these fake doorway pages and always advise clients to create real pages if they really want to target a keyword, but it made me question whether my advice was sound.

Obviously, there are many issues at play here:

1. The guy did admit that he could not guarantee Google results with this method. (I explained the importance of this to the clinet since he really wants GG, Yahoo, and AOL rankings).

2. There is only one L$ site for his term.

3. His favorite search term is not a real high volume term.

Still, I question...Should I be creating these doorway pages for clients or just stick to building quality sites that earn high rankings? Anyone have strong opinions on this?

[korkus2000]

Stick with quality pages. Doorway page optimization is a high risk endeavor. It can work but you have to be ready for a complete melt down. Ask your client how they would feel getting their domain name banned for life. I would stick to what works and is not seen as cheating unless you are ready to step into a risky practice.

[nvision]

I second korkus's motion - there's no point putting hard work and effort into something dodgy when you can just as well build quality optimised content (and even still risk unfortunate setbacks, but at least you'll know you did a clean job!).

[petertdavis]

Did they get it in through Zeal?