Doorways

Do we still use them?

[Dabrowski]

I'm a noob to SEO, and just doing my research before I start optimizing my site.

I've been reading up on doorways, the threads I've read seem to approve of doorways as long as they form part of the site and are relevant.

So, my plan is that for every page I have, or all I can find that fit this criteria, create a doorway page as a description of that page, and an advert for whatever service it relates to, does this sound OK?

The only problem is Google returned 4,050 pages about doorways for this site, and I couldn't find anything with a recent date.

Are relevant doorways still ok?

[Receptional Andy]

You're going to have to be a bit more specific about what you mean by a doorway. A fairly basic principle of SEO is that pretty much every page on a site is a potential 'doorway' or 'entry' page.

for every page I have...create a doorway page as a description of that page, and an advert for whatever service it relates to, does this sound OK

Frankly, no. Is there a reason the actual pages themselves can't do the job? I'm not sure I understand the need for creating this additional content.

[Dabrowski]

No reason, I am putting up a lot of real content, but I'd heard and from what I've read, that doorways can boost your ranking, by writing a page for the engines. I'm not going to use them as an excuse for a crap site.

[ZydoSEO]

If your plan is to show the SEs one optimized version of the page, and to show non-SE users a different version of the page... this would be BAD IMO.

Write your content with the user AND the SEs in mind... When forced to choose between what is right for the user and what is right for the SEs, choose what is right for your users. In the long run, you'll be rewarded... even by the SEs.

[Robert Charlton]

Way back, I posted some thoughts about doorways on this thread that may answer some of your questions....

When is a door not a door?
When it's ajar. But seriously - about doorway pages...
[webmasterworld.com...]

I've been reading up on doorways, the threads I've read seem to approve of doorways as long as they form part of the site and are relevant.

They have to be well integrated into the site, and they have to work for the user too. If you read my comments in the above thread, you'll see that any tricks to sweep "doorways" under the rug are likely to come back to bite you.

If the pages are integrated into the site, it's likely that your visitors are going to see them, via navigation as well as via inbound search, so the content on each page needs to be worth reading, useful, and distinct from other pages.

You can't just drop keyword combinations into what's basically the same page. If you do, you'll lose your visitors, and you won't get inbound links.