Is this an example of bad doorway pages or perfectly fine and helping users?
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I'm asking because I want to do something similar. http://bit.ly/1puGXJu Imagine hundreds of pages like this, with the city names switched out.
Since the inventory is different on each page, due to different inventory in different cities, are these pages not considered doorway pages and Google will probably be fine with them?
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So it doesn't look like Google is penalizing them, and are actually rewarding them.
I agree.
I think that most of the time, Google will filter pages like these. Some of the time the entire website will be reduced in rankings.
But, sometimes stuff like this will get good rankings, and those good rankings might persist for a long time.
If a person decides to place that type of content on his website, he should know that it will probably have a short life in Google's search results and might cause his site to be penalized.
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That's what I thought as well. However this site has had these pages for over 2 years, and in the last few months they rank in the #1 spot for all keywords. After the Penguin update last fall, these pages hit the #1 spot for all keywords. So it doesn't look like Google is penalizing them, and are actually rewarding them.
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I would call it spam. Very low quality spam.
From what I have seen, Google has been killing pages like these for about ten years.
Pages like these usually are indexed and persist in the SERPs for a short time. But, then they are filtered from display or their websites are hit by panda within a few weeks to a few months. Occasionally they persist but are almost always filtered or the entire website penalized.
You can have a great, fantastic website and then add a few folders of pages like these and see your rankings go into the tank.
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