How best to clean up doorway pages. 301 them or follow no index ?
-
Hi Mozzers,
I have what is classed as doorway pages on my website. These have historically been location specific landing pages for some of our categories but from speaking to a number of different webmasters , then general consensus is that they are not in google guidelines so I will be getting punished by having them.
My options are :
-
I can 301 the pages back to their original category pages . This will conserve some link juice to pass back to the respective category page.
-
I can set these as Follow No index. Not sure what will happen here with regards to link value etc.
What would be best ?... Some of the pages do currently rank "fairly well" for some of the locations so I am getting traffic from them but I also know I will be getting a algorithmic penalty for having them so how best I clean these up ?.
Also , by cleaning up the site structure , would I see any benefit here ? or will I have to wait for a new panda update/ refresh ? I thought the panda refresh won't use a new dataset
thanks
Pete
-
-
Key point by Rebecca, use data to make this decision. I just 410'ed almost 800 old pages/articles from a website I help run. They were all republished press releases that were at least 2 years old, they got less than 9 organic pageviews over the past 6 month period and no link equity. You have to do some work with merging this data from GA and OSE, but it is worth it. I could say that when I deleted these 800 pages I was not losing significant traffic or links and I was improving my crawl efficiency with Google and potentially a quality factor with Google as they were not having to look at crappy old content. Another way to say this is that if users were not visiting the pages nor were they linking to them, how could they be useful and if anything would make my site look less reputable to them.
Cheers!
FYI - the spider Screaming Frog (one of my fav tools) just integrated with the GA API, so you can crawl and get GA data combined. (You can also just play with GA filters as well). If Screaming Frog can get the tool to access the Moz API - BOOM! That would make this work so much easier. (Hint hint mozzers this would be an amazing tool for the Moz crawler as well!)
-
Hello,
Well these pages are onsite but I've been told they can also be classed as doorway pages or at best, spammy..
So for example - you can see below I have a main "cleaning Equipment category" and I also have cleaning equipment category pages for different locations , so these would serve carpet cleaners in London , carpet cleaners in Brighton , carpet cleaners in manchester and so on.
www.site.co.uk/cleaning-equipment/carpet-cleaners
www.site.co.uk/cleaning-equipment-london/carpet-cleaners
www.site.co.uk/cleaning-equipment-brighton/carpet-cleaners
www.site.co.uk/cleaning-equipment-manchester/carpet-cleaners
www.site.co.uk/cleaning-equipment-liverpool/carpet-cleanersAll the location pages have unique content , title tags , h1 tags etc but I've been told they look spammy and they are in effect doorway pages as I trying to get a local search footprint in different cities. .
what I want to change it to , is just have the www.site.co.uk/cleaning-equipment/carpet-cleaners page and either 301 the location pages or follow no index them.
thanks
Pete
-
By "doorway pages" you just mean a thin, off-site landing page which quickly funnels a visitor onto your main site, correct?
If it hasn't been hit with a manual penalty, it ranks well, AND it's got links worth keeping (note the qualifier there), I'd go for the 301. But only if it can meet all three of those criteria. If it didn't, then I'd let it 404.
-
Hi there
Honestly, I would get rid of them if they are blatantly doorway pages. The point of a doorway page is to show crawlers one thing and then a user another thing that are unrelated. Unless those pages are useful, ranking for relevant terms, and can be redirected to a relevant page (at which point they aren't doorway pages), then I would do that.
I would make sure what you have are doorway pages, and if they are, just lose them and build equity in pages that should be ranking for those queries.
When it comes to your site architecture - I would make sure that's top notch regardless of upcoming algorithms. Never build a site in fear of updates, always build it for the best possible user experience and make sure that it's living up to their expectations. Make users happy, and the search engines will reward you.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
Discourage search engines from indexing this site AFTER a site launch
Hi, I have unticked "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" a few months before the initial release of my website. I don't want to be found by search engines until the official release (still a few months left). Do you think that ticking this box again will harm the website's long-term ranking or have any repercussion on the website? Do you have any additional advice to avoid being temporarily ranked until the official release which won't harm the website in SERPs? Thanks for your answers.
Local Website Optimization | | Juvo0 -
Company with different branches: Generic Keywords & Localized Keywords: Best practise?
INITIAL SITUATION: We offer a branded product/service in different cities. We have different contact pages for every city (—> basically just a form and a map, i.e. 100% SHALLOW). GOAL:
Local Website Optimization | | Cesare.Marchetti
We would like to rank for the branded keyword only (—> more generic search intent) but as well as for branded keyword + cities (—> more transactional search intent) combinations. REMARK: It would make little sense in my opinion to develop the individual contact pages (for every city) to „full“ pages with real content as there isn’t really specific content for the differenct cities to add. OPTIONS:
1) HOME page: target for the branded keyword CONTACT pages (one for each city): target for the branded keyword + city name HOME page: target for the branded keyword + all the city names CONTACT pages (one for each city): : NO keyword targeting at all HOME page: target for the branded keyword + different city names CONTACT pages (one for each city): target for the branded keyword + city name Add CANONICAL tag to main page ???!!!??? What is best practise? What would you recommend? Is there another solution? I really would like to know your opinion. Thanks a lot for your hints in advance.
Cheers,
CesareBearbeiten0 -
Local SEO: thoughts on driving users to a homepage or to a local landing page?
I work with a client who is about to launch a local landing page for one of their locations. They're worried that the new local landing page will cannibalize some of the keyword rankings for the homepage. Any advice on how to have a local presence but still drive people to the more valuable homepage?
Local Website Optimization | | jrridley0 -
What more can be done to get Google to change the landing pages it uses for certain search terms?
For one of my SEO campaigns, Google is using the website's home page as the landing page for the majority of search terms being tracked. The website splits its products by region and so we want specific region pages to rank for search terms related to that region, rather than the home page. We have optimised each regional page to a reasonably high standard and we have ensured that there is a good amount of internal linking and sign-posting to those region pages, however, Google is still using the home page. The only complication is that for the first few months there were canonical tags on these pages to the home page. These were removed around 3 months ago and we've checked that the region pages are indexed properly. Is there anything we are missing? Has anyone had any success in getting Google to change its landing pages?
Local Website Optimization | | ClickHub-Harry0 -
Which is the best, ".xx" or ".com.xx" in general and for SEO?
Hi, I'm working for a digital marketing agency and have traffic from different countries. We are planning to make different websites for each country. What is the best SEO practice to choose the domain between ".xx" or ".com.xx" from Spain, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru?
Local Website Optimization | | NachoRetta
I think that the ccTLD is better always, for example ".es" better than ".com.es"0 -
Where should I 301 redirect my current domain to given this situation?
My company currently owns three apartment complexes. They are within blocks of each other. Only one of them has a website (believe it or not). The one that has the website ranks fairly well, but only because it has been around for a long time. There have not been any intentional SEO efforts. I have stumbled across a wonderful, keyword rich & location specific, domain name but I have a question. Here's the scenario: We have: Apartment Complex 1 - www.apartmentcomplex1.com (longstanding website) Apartment Complex 2 - No website. Apartment Complex 3 - No website. We are considering buying the domain: www.KeywordRichDomain.com. The new URL structure would be: www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-1 www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-2 www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-3 Should I 301 redirect www.apartmentcomplex1.com to the new root domain or should I redirect it to the appropriate sub-folder of the new domain? Putting myself in the user's shoes, if I were expecting to go to the apartmentcomplex1.com domain, I would want to land on the sub-folder because it's relevant to what I was looking for. However, I don't think people will directly type in the old URL. I think people will be searching for apartments in the area and I want all three of our complexes to show up. By redirecting the good domain to this new root domain, it should help us start out life pretty well in the SERPS. (my assumption at least). Thoughts?
Local Website Optimization | | MeasureEverything0 -
Can to many 301 redirects damage my Ecommerce Site - SEO Issue
Hello All, I have an eCommerce website doing online hire. We operate from a large number of locations (100 approx) and my 100 or so categories have individual locations pages against them example - Carpet Cleaners (category) www.mysite/hire-carpetcleaners
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC12
carpet cleaner hire Manchester www.mysite/hire-carpetcleaners/Manchester
carpet cleaner hire london
carpet cleaner hire Liverpool patio heater (category)
patio heater hire Manchester
patio heater hire London
patio heater hire Liverpool And so on..... I have unique content for some of these pages but given that my site had 40,000 odd urls, I do have a large amount of thin/duplicate content and it's financially not possible to get unique
content written for every single page for all my locations and categories. Historically, I used to rank very well for these location pages although this year, things have dropped off and recently , I was hit with the Panda 4.0 update which i understand targets thin content. Therefore what I am int he process of doing is reducing the number of locations I want to rank for and have pages for thus allowing me to achieve both a higher percentage of unique content over duplicate/thin content on the whole site and only concerntrate on a handful of locations which I can realistically get unique content written for. My questions are as follows. By reducing the number of locations, my website will currently 301 redirect these location page i have been dropping back to it's parent category.
e.g carpet cleaner hire Liverpool page - Will redirect back to the parent Carpet cleaner hire Page. Given that I have nearly 100 categories to do , this will mean site will generate thousands of 301 redirects when I reduce down to a handful of locations per category. The alternative Is that I can 404 those pages ?... What do yout think I should do ?.. Will it harm me by having so many 301's . It's essentially the same page with a location name in it redirecting back to the parent. Some of these do have unqiue content but most dont ?. My other question is - On a some of these categories with location pages, I currently rank very well for locally although there is no real traffic for these location based keywords (using keyword planner). Shall I bin them or keep them? Lastly , Once I have reduced the number of location pages , I will still have thin content until , I can get the unique content written for them. Should I remove these pages until that point of leave them as it is? It will take a few months
to get all the site with unique content. Once complete, I should be able to reduce my site down from 40,000 odd pages to say 5,000 pages Any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks
Pete0 -
Local SEO + Best Practice for locations
Hi All, Based on a hypothetical scenario, lets say you are a plumber. You live and operate within Chelsea in London. You have established a Google places profile and incorporated schema data to tell Google your fixed place location. In addition you operate in several nearby towns with no fixed location presence. i.e Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham. I create a feature rich page on 'How to find a quality plumber'. Within the page I incorporate the following description: blah blah, as a quality plumber serving the community of Chelsea, we also offer our services to nearby towns of Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham. I create hyperlinks for the towns (Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham) that allow the user see in details a full list of services, operation hours, etc. Naturally all towns will have there own unique content (no duplication). Question
Local Website Optimization | | Mark_Ch
Is the above scenario the correct way to provide local seo or is this approach considered spammy to Google? Thanks Mark0