Do doorway pages work?

[AndrewASmith]

I have heard that manually created entry pages work well in the search engines. Had anyone tried this?

[saj]

Doorway pages might improve a web site’s ranking in the search engines but for short term, If found out, a search engine may ban that website

[coolslko]

Originally Posted by saj

Doorway pages might improve a web site’s ranking in the search engines but for short term, If found out, a search engine may ban that website

Indeed......using doorway pages may harm your site as it is a black hat SEO practice and your site could be banned anytime when search engine detect it on your site.

Doorway pages are pages specifically made for search engines. Doorway pages contain many links - often several hundred - that are of little to no use to the visitor, and do not contain valuable content. HTML sitemaps are a valuable resource for your visitors, but ensure that these pages of links are easy for your visitors to navigate. If you have a number of links to include, consider organizing them into categories or into multiple pages. But in doing so, ensure that they are intended for visitors to navigate the sections of your site, and not simply for search engines.

Read more here-

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=66355

[Rankenstein]

Coolsko is pretty much there. Technically, a doorway page is a page designed to rank well but which doesn't actually have anything the surfers wanted to find on it. That's why engines don't like them. Surfers have to move on via a link to another page to find what they want. That's why they are called 'doorways'.

I take the view that if you make a page to rank well, and to match the look and feel of a current site, and give it functionality (a fully working search box, or a calculator, or tools or whatever) - in other words, just add more good content on well made pages - then you've taken the concept of a doorway page and stood it on it's head. And it works a treat. Give people what they want, that's the ticket.

[sniperhiga]

For short term only... If you are serious about your investing and future business don't use doorway pages.

[poksa]

Instead of doing doorway pages, Try to give more time on your link building tactics.

[aimhigh]

Originally Posted by AndrewASmith

I have heard that manually created entry pages work well in the search engines. Had anyone tried this?

I'm new in SEO but based on what i've learned Doorway pages is prohibited. It's true that by using this can achieve high rankings and hopefully drive traffic to the main site. However, this could be ground for banning once caught.

[Cordell]

Has anyone tried using them on non-top three PPC sites and do they work there or are they also taboo there too? My guess is if they do not add value to the visitor and only to the site trying to get traffic and rankings, they are no good.