A doorway page is a web page designed to rank highly for specific search queries, often with little content value, for the purpose of redirecting users to another page or website.
Google considers doorway pages to be a type of web spam.
Here are a few examples of doorway pages:
- A page with a list of cities or states that links to the same generic content or product page, regardless of the city or state clicked.
Example: “Plumbing Services in [City Name]” pages that all lead to the same general plumbing services page.
- A page optimized for a specific keyword or phrase that immediately redirects users to a different, more general page.
Example: A page titled “Best Running Shoes for Marathon Training” that redirects to a generic running shoe sales page.
- Multiple pages targeting slight variations of the same keyword or phrase, all leading to the same destination.
Example: “Cheap Flights to Paris,” “Affordable Flights to Paris,” and “Low-cost Flights to Paris” pages that all redirect to the same flight booking page.
- Pages with little or no original content that are stuffed with keywords and exist only to funnel users to another page or website.
Example: A page filled with the keyword “Leather Handbags” that links to a general e-commerce site selling various products, including handbags.
Doorway pages are generally considered manipulative and are against the webmaster guidelines of many search engines.
Search engines may penalize websites using doorway pages by lowering their search rankings or removing them from the index altogether.