How Google's Doorway Pages Update Affects Local SEO
-
Hey Awesome Local Folks!
I thought I'd take a proactive stance and start a thread on the new doorway pages update from Google, as I feel there will be questions coming up about this here in the forum:
Here's the update announcement:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/03/an-update-on-doorway-pages.html
And here's the part that will make local business owners and Local SEOs take a second glance at this:
Here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages:
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?
I think this will naturally lead to questions about the practice of creating local/city landing pages. At this point, my prediction is that this will come down to high quality vs. crummy quality pages of this type. In fact, after chatting briefly with Andrew Shotland, I'm leaning a bit toward seeing the above language as being strongly geared toward directory type sites and large franchises. I recommend reading Andrew's post about his take on this, as I think he's on the right track:
http://www.localseoguide.com/googles-about-to-close-your-local-doorway-pages/
So, I'm feeling at this point that if you've made the right efforts to develop unique, high quality local landing pages, you should be good unless you are an accidental casualty of an over-zealous update. We'll see! If anyone has thoughts to contribute on this thread, I hope they will, and if lots of questions start coming up about this here in the community, feel free to link back to this thread in helping your fellow community members Thanks, all!
-
Hi Blake,
What I'm suggesting with those links is that you need to do a thorough analysis of any competitor to discover whether their high rankings are a case of geography, organic strength, reviews, citations and a host of other factors ... or, if the pack in question has been spammed. If the former, you then know what the factors are that are contributing to rank and can identify which factors (if any) you can target to surpass the competitor. If the latter, then you can always report spam to Google. There are believed to be several hundred factors that contribute to rank, and a Local SEO or local business owner who is feeling astonishment over being outranked by what appears to be a weak competitor needs to sit down and put the time in to discover whether these high rankings are the result of strength that Google is responding to, or the result of spam that Google is failing to catch.
In the scope of a forum, it's not likely that a community member is going to be able to take the time to do a full competitive analysis for you, so I'm hoping the links I've provided will get you started on doing one. I totally get how frustrating it can be to find your business or your client's business in this scenario of being outranked, but fortunately, we can use skill to divine the probable cause of this outcome and, hopefully, figure out how to overcome any issues, whenever possible.
Hope this helps!
-
Although confusing, I appreciate the shared links to the threads. It's still not clear to me why google ranks the site I shared #1! in a highly competitive keyword. It's the same keyword in endless local cities but with that city in the title next to it. Does google still see those titles are technically different? So google doesn't recognize www.url.com/keyword-city#1 and www.url.com/keyword-city#2 as penalty worthy? Seems unfair to those taking time to make sure there are no keyword titles used more than once on a large site. OH AND...the content on these endless "city" pages have the EXACT same content on each one but the city in 3 or 4 different areas is switched out.
-
Hi Blake,
These 2 threads may help you diagnose competitors' rankings:
https://moz.com/community/q/do-you-know-what-s-triggering-your-local-packs
https://moz.com/community/q/top-local-organic-rankings-but-nowhere-to-be-found-on-google-snack-pack
Hope these help!
-
I'm super focused on creating non-duplicate content and creating blogs with killer info-graphics but I have a business I help where I created 10 specific city landing pages within the main site with great original content. Then I come across this site seasonsviewwindowanddoor.com and think, are you serious? How is this legal and it ranks high in any city search I do. Of course this conflicts my thinking about what to do. Any of your two cents is greatly appreciated
-
You're very welcome!
-
Thanks Miriam
-
Hi Joanna,
Yes - I would still recommend creating a unique page on your site for each location out of which you operate, and making maximum effort to ensure that the content on each page is unique and helpful.
-
Miriam,
Thanks for jumping on this - very helpful to see some info already being aggregated and questions answered. I know I'm a little late to the party, but it sounds to me like you'd still recommend that businesses (such as a bank, clothing retailer, etc.) that have one business but locations in multiple cities and/or states, create location specific landing pages that match up with individual google+ business pages?
Obviously, each page has elements like a unique description and service set list as appropriate, unique hours/timezone, potentially customer reviews, unique driving directions from major areas, etc. Essentially - true content users would be looking at.
My understanding is this is still the "best practice" path for ranking in local pack and/or queries that drive location-specfic serps. Accurate?
Thanks again!
-
Thanks Miriam!
-
Hey Rod,
This is Google's def. of Doorway Pages: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721311
If you read through that carefully, I think the conclusion you may draw is that the difference between what Google is describing as a doorway page and what you may hear Local SEOs referring to as 'local landing pages' or 'city landing pages' or what have you, would be uniqueness and quality. This is my reading of this, anyway.
If you are going to create landing pages, as in the case of a local business serving multiple cities, I would suggest making maximum effort to ensure that each page is a thorough, unique, stand-alone resource for visitors. Don't throw up a bunch of thin, similar pages. Go for uniqueness and high quality. Hope this helps.
-
I'd like to hear the differences between doorway pages and landing pages. I see Google utilizing multiple local landing pages, so if we follow creating pages similar to this we should be fine?
-
Hey Rod,
I'm trying to understand what this service does. I looked up a random business in it and it simply seems to be giving a sense of how the business is listed on Google. I'm not seeing actual landing pages. Is there something particular that you are looking at on this site that concerns you in regards to doorway pages?
-
Google updated - now it goes to city/town: https://www.gybo.com/pa/norristown (after you put in your town)
So I'm thinking this is in line with what we currently do for town landing pages.
-
Hmm... that link is redirecting me to a homepage.
-
What are your thoughts if local landing pages are created similar to the gybo.com pages?
http://www.gybo.com/pennsylvania/ is one example (my state) - thanks for the link Miriam!
-
Thanks for sharing Miriam!
-
Hey Rod,
While there hasn't really been any more news that I'm aware of on this, you might like to check out the thread on Linda Buquet's forum, which has some additional discussion and some other links in it, for further reading:
-
Any updates on this topic? Thanks!
-
That's great, Linda! I bet you'll be getting stories from your community about things they see happening with this. Really glad you'll be covering it.
-
Hi Adam,
Good comment! I'm also thinking about the multi-site scenario - particularly the multi-mini-site scenario. I've never been a fan of this approach and it does seem like the update could be applied to this scenario. Not sure yet ... but could be.
-
Agree with you, Ryan, that creativity is so key. One thing I have long stressed to my own clients is that owning a website = having become a publisher. You want to publish great stuff - not junk.
-
Thanks Miriam, we've been discussing in the G+ Pro community all day and I'm working on a forum post for tomorrow. I have Andrew's post in there and I'll include a link to your post here as well.
-
Hi Miriam
The other aspect of this that got me thinking when I saw the update was around multiple sites for the same business. I have seen this in several niches where the same business has 2 or 3 different websites ranking on page 1 for their main term. Each of these sites has unique content etc however they are all linked via the same address. I have been waiting for Google to resolve this issue as it is technically a doorway page unique just more sophisticated. It wouldn't be hard for them to devalue a site if they see it ranking well and it is the same business as another site ranking.
I wonder if they will deal with this issue in this update.
-
Great update Miriam. There are a lot of things site owners can add to these types of pages to help with unique content: drive time to the nearest branch from City / Neightborhood X; mobile service schedules in City / Neighborhood X; Images of service radius; highly localized testimonials, etc. Will be interesting to see the impact with franchisees..
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
-
Add Content to Page or Create New Page?
We are doing some local SEO for our business which is in 10 cities. We have built a city page with unique content for each city and linked to a unique contact page with contact information unique for each city. The content on our existing page is fairly thin. 2/3 of it is the same amongst all pages as our services are the exact same from city to city so the description ad menu of our services. Then 1/3 of the content is unique to the city which is a stock photo and 1-2 paragraphs of text containing about 175 words. We have another chunk of content for each city which is probably 2-3 paragraphs but each paragraph will be short so probably in total 200 words in 1-3 paragraphs. The subject of the content is related to one of the most popular search queries that are location specific. For example, if we were a company that provided say, environmental remodeling services in city X, this second chunk of content might be about required building permits when doing remodeling in City X and how to get them, how much they cost. If the original content on the pre-existing landing page is already pretty thin, is the SEO effect going to most likely be better to add the content to the existing page or, even though it's less than 200 words, add the content to a separate page and cross link between the main city page and the city contact page.
Local Website Optimization | | SEO18051 -
More pages on website better for SEO?
Hi all, Is creating more pages better for SEO? Of course the pages being valuable content. Is this because you want the user to spend as much time as possible on your site. A lot of my competitors websites seem to have more pages than mine and their domain authorities are higher, for example the services we provide are all on one page and for my competitors each services as its own page. Kind Regards, Aqib
Local Website Optimization | | SMCCoachHire0 -
Even after doing every possible thing required for SEO my client's website is not coming on top.can you tell me where i am lacking?
_Â Hi team_ I have been working on a website called signboards.co.in since 4 months.it was not in top 100 but now below 50 for 2-3 keywords.even after submitting in many directories after competitor analysis moz shows only one external link in its link metrics.apart from this every possible thing required for SEO is done in a proper way,but still it is not giving results.can you help me out?all my other clients work is going good except this one.can you please let me know what is going wrong with my project?As the project submission date is near i need your help as soon as possible. Thanks Najia jehan
Local Website Optimization | | Najia-ali0 -
Community Discussion - What are your experiences creating local landing pages?
Hi there, Moz Community! In Tuesday's post on the Moz Blog, "Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages," Miriam Ellis asks: When tasked with developing a set of city landing pages for your local business clients, do you experience any of the following: brain fog, dry mouth, sweaty palms, procrastination, woolgathering, or ennui? Then chances are, the diagnosis is a _fear of local landing pages. _ Which brings me to today's question! What are the toughest challenges you've faced when creating local landing pages? How have you overcome them? What successes have you had, and what lessons have you learned along the way?
Local Website Optimization | | MattRoney4 -
SEO geolocation vs subdirectories vs local search vs traffic
My dear community and friends of MOZ, today I have a very interesting question to you all. Although I´ve got my opinion, and Im sure many of you will think the same way, I want to share the following dilemma with you. I have just joined a company as Online Marketing Manager and I have to quickly take a decision about site structure. The site of the company has just applied a big structure change. They used to have their information divided by country (each country one subdirectory) www.site.com/ar/news www.site.com/us/news . They have just changed this and erased the country subdirectory and started using geolocation. So if we go to www.site.com/news although the content is going to be the same for each country ( it’s a Latinamerican site, all the countries speak the same language except Brazil) the navigation links are going to drive you to different pages according to the country  where you are located. They believe that having less subdirectories PA or PR is going to be higher for each page due to less linkjuice leaking. My guess is that if you want to have an important organic traffic presence you should A) get a TLD for the country you want to targe… if not B)have a subdirectory or subdomain for each country in your site. I don’t know what local sign could be a page giving to google if the URL and html doesn’t change between countries- We can not use schemas or rich formats neither…So, again, I would suggest to go back to the previous structure. On the other hand…I ve been taking a look to sensacine.com and although their site is pointing only to Spain |  |
Local Website Optimization | | facupp1
| Â | |
| Â | |
| Â | |
| Â | |
| Â | |
| Â | |
| Â | | They have very good rankings for big volume keywords in all latinamerica, so I just want to quantify this change, since I will be sending to the designers and developers a lot of work1 -
How can i optimize my pages for local areas if we are not in that area?
Hi Mozers! So I watched a video about Matt Cutts he talks about creating multiple web pages just for one keywords is an absolutely no go. Â So I was wondering we serve a clients in NZ Australia and USA, If we target phrase like Psychic Readings California, Psychic Readings San Diego etc (USA) Psychic Readings Melbourne, Psychic Readings Sydney (AU) Psychic Readings Auckland, Psychic Readings Wellington (NZ) What is the best practice or right way to go about structuring my pages to do this without going against googles guidelines. Many thanks
Local Website Optimization | | edward-may1 -
Problem ranking page with a double name and an "&"
I have a client with a double name and a & like: Jones & Jones. Â I and using all in one SEO on a Wordpress site. Â Their home page is not ranking even though I have Jones, Jones & Jones and Jones and Jones listed in the keywords. Interestingly enough other pages where I did not list the home page rank when you do a serach for "Jones & Jones" I have not had this issue with other sites but have never had a name repeated and and & in between... any advice woild be appreciate.. I just signed up for a trial of MOZ...
Local Website Optimization | | ajgar0 -
Ecommerce Site with Unique Location Pages - Issue with unique content and thin content?
Hello All, I have an Ecommerce Site specializing in Hire and we have individual location pages on each of our categories for each of our depots. All these pages show the NAP of the specific branch Given the size of our website (10K approx pages) , it's physically impossible for us to write unique content for each location against each category so what we are doing is writing unique content for our top 10 locations in a category for example , and the remaining 20 odd locations against the same category has the same content but it will bring in the location name and the individual NAP of that branch so in effect I think this thin content. My question is , I am quite sure I we are getting some form of algorithmic penalty with regards the thin/duplicate content.  Using the example above , should we 301 redirect the 20 odd locations with the thin content , or should be say only 301 redirect 10 of them , so we in effect end up with a more 50/50 split on a category with regards to unique content on pages verses thin content for the same category. Alternatively, should we can 301 all the thin content pages so we only have 10 locations against the category and therefore 100% unique content. I am trying to work out which would help most with regards to local rankings for my location pages. Also , does anyone know if a thin/duplicate content penalty is site wide or can it just affect specific parts of a website. Any advice greatly appreciated thanks Pete
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC120