Doorway Pages

Doorway Pages: Doorway pages are any webpages created as part of a spamdexing initiative to spam search engines. These pages are often designed to rank highly in search engines, only to redirect users to pages with advertisements or other content. They may also be referred to as gateway pages, entry pages, bridge pages, portal pages, and other names.

Doorway pages often employ cloaking techniques, so users may not even be aware that they are being redirected to another website. Pages that are cloaked use a mechanism that shows one webpage (usually more legitimate) to search engine crawlers and another, spammy one to the user; this is a common Black Hat SEO tactic. In general, this merely requires a meta refresh command to redirect users to a new page; this code is usually inputted into the coding on a website. It may also be contained in JavaScript instead. These are not to be confused with landing pages, which are used to redirect users when they have clicked on an ad as part of a PPC campaign.

These sites also can pose a risk for internet users, as the pages sometimes contain malicious scripts and software, and others will redirect to websites with "spammy" or adult content. Typically, however, doorway pages are created to confuse search engines rather than to be clicked on by actual human beings.

However, some doorway pages are simply used to redirect users to content-rich sites and aren't meant to be seen. For instance, a website at www.example.com/index.php might use a redirection from www.example.com for its users. As long as this site is created in a search engine-friendly manner, without cloaking techniques, it shouldn't result in the site being banned from search results.