Bottom line: A doorway page stands alone from your website, and offers little value to searchers

If any of those characteristics exist on page, and if a number of these pages are created within a single website, Google is likely to discount their value, or worse, ban site.

If doorway pages are inappropriate then what is a better alternative?

The “essay page” An essay page, on other hand, is integrated into main website (although not into navigation structure). It offers real value to searcher because content is relevant and well-written. It often has following characteristics: oClean HTML coding with an HTML design similar to that of other pages of website oA lot of content, with several hyperlinked phrases in body text oSeveral in-bound links from other parts of website Example: On solutions page, you hyperlink phrase “targeted keyword,” to targeted-keyword.html essay page. oQuality content that offers real value to searcher

Bottom line: An essay page is a natural extension of your website. For all intents and purposes, it is integrated content more than it is a doorway page, because it expands on a certain subject. Will you benefit from using essay pages? Essay pages used effectively can be good solutions when a site’s navigation does not support addition of content, or if it would be difficult to develop valuable content to include within main navigation. If this is not case I recommend that you add additional pages of content (which will provide more benefits than essay pages), while enhancing user experience.

Summary and Recommendation

The creation and proper integration of additional content is critical to ability to achieve consistent top 10 rankings on most targeted keywords. Essay pages can be valuable when a website cannot be easily scaled to include more content through main navigation structure. However, first priority should be increasing content as much as possible before resorting to essay pages.

Over time, your more sophisticated competitors will compete for placement by incorporating significant content, and by implementing important search engine optimization features, not by using essay (or doorway) pages.

If you’ve adopted an aggressive “doorway page” strategy, it’s possible (and maybe likely) that a competitor would report it to Google. If Google determines that you have violated their “rules,” you could be “de-listed”.

As a result of risk that doorway pages pose and benefits integrating additional relevant content provides, I strongly recommend approach of reevaluating your navigation structure, and adding additional pages of relevant content if possible. From a search engine ranking point of view – content is not king, but relevant content sure is.

Scott Smigler has been an evangelist for a serious, ROI-based focus on the online channel since he founded Exclusive Concepts in 1997. Exclusive Concepts provides integrated online marketing strategies, Internet brand consulting, search engine marketing campaigns and results-oriented web sites for hundreds of clients that range in size from small ecommerce firms to public companies.

3. The bigger website better.... It's simple, more pages your website has, more keywords and phrases you can use. The major search engines will index all of your pages (for most part).

4. What pages won't a search engine 'see'? It is best to build a website in a language search engines can understand. If you have a site that takes all its information from a database on your server, search engines likely will not index that information. Example: You have a website that sells tickets. Since tickets you sell are for shows and events that are constantly changing, your webmaster probably will build you a site that is dependent on pulling information from a database. Spiders generally have a harder time 'seeing' information from these types of websites. I recommend that for every 'dynamic' or database driven service on your site, you also create a basic HTML page, that search engines can follow. For instance, you may have a new comedy show coming to town that you want to sell tickets for. Just like above example on autographs, you should create different pages and sections on each individual type of show. Have a link for 'Music Tickets', then a link for each type of music and create a separate page for that......like 'Rock and Roll Tickets', 'Country Music Tickets' etc..... all with their own separate page. Now, you have created a way for search engines to 'see' that your website not only sells tickets, but also what types of tickets, down to last detail. You will now find yourself listed in search engines for a multitude of ticket related keywords. If your whole site is database driven, number of keywords you will be found under will be much less.

5. Other Tips: * Use keyword internal linking: Search engine spiders 'see' what each link to a page is being labeled. Example: if you have a page that is about 'Sports Autographs', then label all your internal links to that page as 'Sports Autographs', rather then something like 'click here for more autographs'..... in other words, use keywords to label your internal links. * Have at least your major links listed on main (index) page. Also, a sitemap is a great tool for search engines (and visitors) to use, to find all of your pages. Have a link to your sitemap from your index page. * Make sure you have location of your shop, office, store etc. on your main page (in HTML text), even if services you offer are geared to a national audience, it is smart to appeal to your local audience as well. A good way to do this is to have your company name, address, town and state at very bottom of your page, in an unobtrusive manner. Put it at bottom of every page on your site. * Its a good idea to make changes to your site at least occasionally. Since search engine spiders are constantly crawling web, they will visit your site regularly. Updating your text (even just a little) or creating new pages shows that your site is active. * Its ok to have external (outbound) links on your site. Again, it shows that your website is offering information. If your website is about 'Colorado Real Estate', then list some Colorado related sites such as: official Colorado state website, or maybe a site that talks about restaurants in Colorado etc. * Use 'Call to Action' language on your pages....i.e. 'click here to fill out our response form' or list your 800 number prominently on every page. * HTML Tips title= use this command for all your internal links (each link can have its own 'title') Example: a href="http://www.web-promotion-specialist.com/searchengineoptimization.htm" rel="nofollow" title="Search Engine Optimization" alt= use this command to describe what your images or photos are (search engines can't 'see' images, so you can tell search engines what each image or photo is about) Example: img src="images/logo.gif" width="131" height="80" alt= "Company Logo"