The Google Search Quality Team has announced that its going to be working on ways to minimize the impact of webspam on the Internet and one of this items is Doorway Pages.

These pages have been used for years by web developers and SEO experts to assist with increasing positioning in the search engines by creating these pages to focus on specific key words. These pages are used to create high ranking for specific search rankings but they are bad for users searching because they lead to similar pages in user search results. This pages take the user to the same destination or intermediate pages that are not as useful as the final destination users were originally searching for.

Google has created a list of questions for webmasters to better understand the new guidelines…

“Here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages:

• Is the purpose to optimize for search engines and funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site, or are they an integral part of your site’s user experience?
• Are the pages intended to rank on generic terms yet the content presented on the page is very specific?
• Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?
• Are these pages made solely for drawing affiliate traffic and sending users along without creating unique value in content or functionality?
• Do these pages exist as an “island?” Are they difficult or impossible to navigate to from other parts of your site? Are links to such pages from other pages within the site or network of sites created just for search engines?”

If you have any questions about Doorway Pages, you can visit the Google Webmaster Help Forum or call us today to help you with your web site.