Landing Page or Doorway ?- that is the question!
-
Hi Guys,
So, I'm looking at a project to build a series of landing pages that cross map cities with Suname. E.g. Sydney + Smyth, New York + Fitzpatrick. On those pages I'll pull in from our directory relevant name based listings and try and display some other tailored / information. The page itself is the end goal - it is definitely not a doorway in the classic sense of encouraging someone to then go on the main site. I want the user to fill out a form on this page because they realise they've landed on a valuable service.
I'm looking at potentially 500 names against 2000 locations, creating 1,000,000 landing pages. Although some of the content will be repetitive I genuinely believe someone doing the appropriate search and finding our page will derive value from our page as our whole business is designed to answer their needs. However I'm worried that Google may classify these pages as doorway pages. Could anyone please shine the light of experience on this for me?
Thanks!
-
Thanks EGOL. Good practial advice! I'll take it into consideration. I guess I just reckon that this approach will cover the long tail to a marginal extent and I can ramp up my efforts in a more hands on way for the main traffic searches.
-
I used to have some big sites made with databases. The challenge with sites of 100,000 pages or 1,000,000 pages is having enough PR to get then into the index and hold them in the index.
If you have a big site you need to have a regular flow of spiders into and out of every page or google will forget them and they will fall out of the index. Even if they stay in the index they will be poorly competitive.
One of my sites had about 150,000 pages and to get and hold it in the index took a lot of links. Today I bet that you would need at least 30 PR5 links that connected deeply into the site to maintain an adequate flow of spiders for healthy indexing for a site of that size. A site with a million pages is going to require a lot more.
So, in addition to creating this site you are going to need some powerful link sources for indexing.
-
Hi EGOL,
Thanks for the swift response. That makes a lot of sense and correlates to how I thought Google approached this issue. I guess I want to just suck it and see if Google will de-index the pages - I am aware that there will not be vastly unique content on all of them but on a steadily increasing percentage. What I am very worried about is being permanently punished if they feel I'm doing something very wrong, or having my entire site downgraded (as I have heard can happen for doorway pages) or having those pages with poor content not be reindexable in 4 months time when there is better content on them.
Do you have any thoughts on these concerns.
Thanks
-
Google crawlers are unable to determine if you are offering a "valuable service".
However, if you have a program crank out a million pages that all look like this.....
"yada yada yada LOCATION yada yada yada SURNAME yada yada yada yada"
"yada yada yada LOCATION yada yada yada SURNAME yada yada yada yada"
"yada yada yada LOCATION yada yada yada SURNAME yada yada yada yada"
.... Google will probably index them and display them in the SERPs for a few days.... (and you might make a little money)... but then you will see the number of pages in their index decline rapidly as they figure out that these are cookiie-cutter-pages and toss them out as duplicate content.
However, if you have the resources to write a million pages of absolutely unique, non-duplicating content then you might make a lot of money from this site.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do you get penalized for Keyword Stuffing in different page URLs?
If i have a website that provides law services in varying towns and we have pages for each town with unique content on each page, can the page URLS look like the following: mysite.com/miami-family-law-attorney mysite.com/tampa-family-law-attorney mysite.com/orlando-family-law-attorney Does this get penalized when being indexed?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Armen-SEO0 -
Best Location to find High Page Authority/ Domain Authority Expired Domains?
Hi, I've been looking online for the best locations to purchase expired domains with existing Page Authority/ Domain Authority attached to them. So far I've found: http://www.expireddomains.net
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | VelasquezEF
http://www.domainauthoritylinks.com
http://moonsy.com/expired_domains/ These site's are great but I'm wondering if I'm potentially missing other locations? Any other recommendations? Thanks.1 -
Will blank category pages automatically get updated
Hello, We've got old category pages that are blank like domain/shoes.html (blank white page not in menu anymore) domain/newshoesurl.html (working URL with link in menu) Will the blank pages be automatically deindexed and updated by Google?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Where is the rule here that forces any home page URLs that include several versions of explicit page name references, such as default.htm or index.html, to redirect to the canonical homepage?
RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)/(1)?$ /search/$1/sort-$2 [R=301]
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | esiow2013
RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=search&q=$1&page=$5&sort=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/(1)?$ /search/$1 [R=301]
RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=search&q=$1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^([r|R])-([0-9]+)((-)([0-9a-zA-Z-]+))?$ index.php?cmd=propertyPage&id=$2&group=1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([s|S])-([0-9]+)((-)([0-9a-zA-Z-]+))?$ index.php?cmd=propertyPage&id=$2&group=2 [L]
RewriteRule ^reset-password$ index.php?cmd=retrievePassword [L]
RewriteRule ^reset-password/([0-9]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ index.php?cmd=retrievePassword&act=retrievePasswordConfirm&code=$1&key=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^map-page.php$ index.php?cmd=mapPage [L]
RewriteRule ^advertise.php$ index.php?cmd=advertiseWithUs [L]
RewriteRule ^my-account.php$ index.php?cmd=protectedMyAccount [L]
RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties(/((R|S)-([0-9]+)))?$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&id=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties/([0-9]+)$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&page=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties/delete/([0-9,]+)$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&act=protectedBookmarkedProperties_delete&id=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^register.php$ index.php?cmd=register [L]
RewriteRule ^about-us.php$ index.php?cmd=aboutUs [L]
RewriteRule ^news(/([0-9]+)(.*))?$ index.php?cmd=news&id=$2&title=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^registration/confirm/key=([a-zA-Z0-9]{150})/code=([a-zA-Z0-9]{5})$ index.php?cmd=register&act=registerConfirm&key=$1&code=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^terms-and-conditions.php$ index.php?cmd=termsAndConditions [L]
RewriteRule ^privacy-policy.php$ index.php?cmd=privacyPolicy [L]
RewriteRule ^contact-us.php$ index.php?cmd=contactUs [L]
RewriteRule ^sitemap.php$ index.php?cmd=siteMap [L]
RewriteRule ^members/login.php$ login.php [L]
RewriteRule ^rss$ index.php?cmd=rss [L]
RewriteRule ^resources.php$ index.php?cmd=links [L]
RewriteRule ^links.php$ /resources.php [R=301]
RewriteRule ^resources2.php$ index.php?cmd=links2 [L]
RewriteRule ^results.php$ index.php?cmd=results [L]
RewriteRule ^residential-properties((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=1&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^commercial-properties((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=2&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=1&str=1&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&group=2&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&group=1&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&str=1&sort=$2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&str=1&sort=$4&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&str=1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&str=1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&str=1&page=$6 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&str=1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=2&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=2&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&sort=$2&group=1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&sort=$2&group=2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&sort=$2&group=1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&sort=$2&group=2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=2&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=2&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=2&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=2&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2&category=$1&group=1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2&category=$1&group=2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2&category=$1&group=1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2&category=$1&group=2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()0-9_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&sort=$6&page=$9 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()0-9_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&sort=$6&page=$9 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2&category=$1&sort=$3&page=$6 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2&category=$1&sort=$3&page=$6 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2&category=$1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2&category=$1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain_categories&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain_categories&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]0 -
Page not being indexed or crawled and no idea why!
Hi everyone, There are a few pages on our website that aren't being indexed right now on Google and I'm not quite sure why. A little background: We are an IT training and management training company and we have locations/classrooms around the US. To better our search rankings and overall visibility, we made some changes to the on page content, URL structure, etc. Let's take our Washington DC location for example. The old address was: http://www2.learningtree.com/htfu/location.aspx?id=uswd44 And the new one is: http://www2.learningtree.com/htfu/uswd44/reston/it-and-management-training All of the SEO changes aren't live yet, so just bear with me. My question really regards why the first URL is still being indexed and crawled and showing fine in the search results and the second one (which we want to show) is not. Changes have been live for around a month now - plenty of time to at least be indexed. In fact, we don't want the first URL to be showing anymore, we'd like the second URL type to be showing across the board. Also, when I type into Google site:http://www2.learningtree.com/htfu/uswd44/reston/it-and-management-training I'm getting a message that Google can't read the page because of the robots.txt file. But, we have no robots.txt file. I've been told by our web guys that the two pages are exactly the same. I was also told that we've put in an order to have all those old links 301 redirected to the new ones. But still, I'm perplexed as to why these pages are not being indexed or crawled - even manually submitted it into Webmaster tools. So, why is Google still recognizing the old URLs and why are they still showing in the index/search results? And, why is Google saying "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt" Thanks in advance! Pedram
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CSawatzky0 -
Is domain name or page title "safe" as anchor text?
I am aware of the dangers of excessively optimized anchor text I have seen some suggestions that as long as your anchor text is either the URL or the page title that this will be OK, no matter how many links come in with that anchor text. Does anyone have an opinion, or even any hard data on this? Thx Paul
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | diogenes0 -
Sudden Ranking Drop from 1st Page
My client's Website http://countryfeelingholidays.com is experiencing a huge drop of its rankings since Aug 1st. It was at 2nd on 1st page on google.lk for the keyword Holidays Sri Lanka . But When I checked it last it has gone to 20th page. I really cannot find a reason for this drop . Only thing that comes to mind is that we put a comment on a blog but finally it appeared on all pages because of top commentator plugin . huge rise in backlinks in oneday . from next day we lost its ranking on google.lk but on google.com it is still at the same position where it used to be . What would be the reason for this ? Could it be a penelty ? What should we do now to get its ranking back ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Osanda0 -
Pages For Products That Don't Exist Yet?
Hi, I have a client that makes products that are accessories for other company's popular consumer products. Their own products on their website rank for other companies product names like, for made up example "2011 Super Widget" and then my client's product... "Charger." So, "Super Widget 2011 Charger" might be the type of term my client would rank for. Everybody knows the 2012 Super Widget will be out in some months and then my client's company will offer the 2012 Super Widget Charger. What do you think of launching pages now for the 2012 Super Widget Charger. even though it doesn't exist yet in order to give those pages time to rank while the terms are half as competitive. By the time the 2012 is available, these pages have greater authority/age and rank, instead of being a little late to the party? The pages would be like "coming soon" pages, but still optimized to the main product search term. About the only negative I see is that they'lll have a higher bounce rate/lower time on page since the 2012 doesn't even exist yet. That seems like less of a negative than the jump start on ranking. What do you think? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 945010