Is this an example of bad doorway pages or perfectly fine and helping users?
-
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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Which are the best off-page SEO techniques for 2020?
I have just published an awesome website or blog, and i really worked hard keeping everything perfect. Do you think it’s enough? Having a perfect blog, website or business is just enough. i need readers for my blog, visitors to my website, and customers for my business. So, what to do?
Local Website Optimization | | boxinghunter0 -
One locations page, or multiple pages?
Hi, I represent a franchisor who does all marketing- including local seo- for our franchisees. I've read a lot about local SEO and understand the basics, but have some remaining questions. 1- If our typical territories are quite large and encompass more than one major city, should we create multiple location pages for the same franchise owner? I believe the answer should be yes from an SEO stand point, but the problem is that most of our franchisees naturally just have one business address (their home). Since PO boxes and virtual offices aren't the way to go, what's the best course of action? And when I say major cities, I'm really talking about major cities (and not just small towns/boroughs). Can they just use a friend's/relative's address? 2- There's a lot of info out there about "locations pages," but it's not really clear whether or not you should really just have ONE page for each location, or several pages with different content? For instance, it looks like a lot of businesses are creating just one, "home-page" looking landing page for their individual locations, with everything from services to testimonials on just that one page. Is this preferred over creating several different local pages for that one location? The latter is what we currently do. From the user stand-point, it looks like each franchise location has it's own "mini website" on our main website. For instance, a landing page optimized for the local business name, a local services page, a project/photo gallery page, local review page, etc. It seems like a lot less work just building one landing page for each location, but is the payoff the same? I'm torn between the two strategies- is it really worth the extra work (in terms of traffic + local ranking) to build out the individual pages for the one location? Thanks Moz Community!
Local Website Optimization | | kimberleymeloserpa0 -
Site is not ranking, please help.
For some reason, we have been fighting and fighting to get a website to rank and no matter what we do- nothing seems to work. I'm just taking over the website handle it personally, but was curious if anyone here had advice on what the issue may be. It isn't even ranking for its brand name, any ideas? http://estesroofingtx.com/
Local Website Optimization | | spadedesign0 -
Do location pages boost the homepage?
Google has stated that businesses should spend time creating location pages for the various service areas that businesses operate in. What I want to know is, it is equally about boosting the relevance of the site as a whole, as well as ranking that individual page in the local area. Does Google take into account the fact that you have the location page and reward the homepage by favoring it more in that local area, or is it simply about ranking an individual page in each town/city?
Local Website Optimization | | OliverNeely2 -
Weird: Local Landing Page Not Showing In "City + Brand" Search Query
Hi Mozzers, I've noticed something strange that I can't quite wrap my head around. I'm hoping it's an easy fix and I'm just overlooking something. Backstory: I'm managing all things digital for a local flooring retailer that has 6 showrooms in the region. I've done basic local SEO - local landing pages with proper markup, GMB set up and verification, Moz Local scores are in the 80% range for each location and improving steadily, etc. However, one of my locations is way behind all of the others in both organic searches and the map. Recently, I did a search for "city + brand" for this particular location in an incognito window and the page came up on the 4th page. When I perform the same search for any of the other locations, the respective landing page come up 1st or 2nd along with the homepage. I even searched using the title tag as well as a few more specific searches and still nothing on the first page. This is weird, right? Has anyone experienced this before? Search Console came back perfect, so no penalties and it's definitely being indexed. For reference, the page I am referring to is http://www.nextdayfloors.net/locations/columbia/ and the location query I am using is "Columbia, MD" Any help is much appreciated! Thanks! Tim
Local Website Optimization | | AinsleyAgency0 -
How to create sites with powerful individual pages to achieve top results.
How to create sites with powerful individual pages to achieve top results . According to MOZ I need to have powerful individual pages to achieve top results my site has a 0 authority so for this reason I need to focus on powerful pages but how do I know if my pages are powerful or not.
Local Website Optimization | | A.V.S0 -
Local SEO: City & County Pages
I'm working on developing some local pages for an HVAC company. They cover two counties, so I was planning on having two county pages, then linking them to individual city pages to keep the menu simpler and not cluttering it up with a couple dozen city pages for people to slog through. Has anybody ever done county pages before for local SEO? Or at least seen them? Just curious to see if there's any real benefit overall for have separate county pages, or if I should just stick to city pages.
Local Website Optimization | | ChaseMG0 -
Stuck on Page 4...is this diagnosis on the right track?
My website's (http://bartlettpairphotography.com) SERP rank is #45 for my targeted keyword: Philadelphia wedding photographers. My site is several years old, with 31-Domain Authority and 42-Page Authority. I've been stuck in SERP 40's for about a year now (I used to be top 5) and I have been pulling my hair out trying everything to no avail. I have an inkling that some configuration is seriously wrong, and would be very very appreciative is someone could point me in the right direction! I'm evidently not an expert at this, but here are my high level thoughts, though I could be totally off base here: Homepage problems (ranking 45 for highest priority keyword: Philadelphia wedding photographers): The #5 rank has a flash website, homepage = 33-DA/44-PA (slightly better than me). This makes me wonder if my problem is off-page? I have recently been submitting my photography work to many relevant wedding blogs so I think I will get some nice relevant backlinks in the coming weeks/months. The #11 rank has the same wordpress theme as me (ProPhotoBlogs), and homepage = 26-DA, 35-PA (somewhat worse than me) and similar homepage content etc...this makes me think I have an on-page problem? As you can see, my targeted keyword starts off with a geographic location. Geographically, our location is ~1 hour outside of the location, so ranking on Google maps etc. is very competitive (hundreds of competitors that are closer). Therefore, I'm mostly focused on non-local ranking. Both of the competitors I mentioned are ranking non-locally and both are 1 hour outside Philadelphia. With that said, would it still benefit me to add local content to my homepage (insert google maps, address, hours etc.)? NON-homepage problems (ranking ~30 for longer tail keywords, i.e. specific wedding venues) My blog page (http://bartlettpairphotography.com/blog) is ="noindex,follow." My reasoning for the "noindex" is because I'm showing FULL posts rather than excerpts (because I want my brides to flip through ~5 weddings rather than only clicking on 1). My thinking was that the FOLLOW aspect would pass along the link juice, while avoiding a duplicate content penalty by noindexing? I don't think this problem affects my higher priority homepage problem, but still wanted to point it out. We have ~100 published posts, but honestly I only care about ranking for ~30 of them. What should I do with the ~70 that I don't care about? Are they sucking up link juice that would be better elsewhere? Or should I just leave it because it's more content? Other than that, I'm really lost as to how I can improve my site. I gave the above examples to show that I am trying, but ultimately I feel like I'm looking in the wrong areas. With my SERP in the mid 40s, I feel like many things are broken that I am not able to figure out. I would be so very grateful if someone could help diagnose my issues!
Local Website Optimization | | bartlettpairphoto0