Doorway page
Encyclopedia
Doorway pages are web pages that are created for spamdexing
, this is, for spamming the index of a search engine
by inserting results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending visitors to a different page. They are also known as bridge pages, portal pages, jump pages, gateway pages, entry pages and by other names. Doorway pages that redirect visitors without their knowledge use some form of cloaking
.
, in most cases they will be redirect
ed with a fast Meta refresh
command to another page. Other forms of redirection include use of Javascript and server
side redirection
, either through the .htaccess
file or from the server configuration file. Some doorway pages may be dynamic pages generated by scripting languages such as Perl
and PHP
.
Doorway pages are often easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings. Sometimes a doorway page is copied from another high ranking page, but this is likely to cause the search engine to detect the page as a duplicate and exclude it from the search engine listings.
Because many search engines give a penalty for using the META refresh command, some doorway pages just trick the visitor into clicking on a link to get them to the desired destination page, or they use Javascript
for redirection.
More sophisticated doorway pages, called Content Rich Doorways, are designed to gain high placement in search results without using redirection. They incorporate at least a minimum amount of design and navigation similar to the rest of the site to provide a more human-friendly and natural appearance. Visitors are offered standard links as calls to action.
Landing pages are regularly misconstrued to equate to Doorway pages within the literature. The former are content rich pages to which traffic is directed to within the context of pay-per-click campaigns and to maximize SEO campaigns.
. They show a version of that page to the visitor, but different from the one provided to crawlers, using server side scripts. They know whether it's a bot or a visitor based on their IP address
and/or user-agent.
These types of doorways utilize (but are not limited to) the following:
Spamdexing
In computing, spamdexing is the deliberate manipulation of search engine indexes...
, this is, for spamming the index of a search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
by inserting results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending visitors to a different page. They are also known as bridge pages, portal pages, jump pages, gateway pages, entry pages and by other names. Doorway pages that redirect visitors without their knowledge use some form of cloaking
Cloaking
Cloaking is a search engine optimization technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the user's browser. This is done by delivering content based on the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of the user requesting the page...
.
Explanation
If a visitor clicks through to a typical doorway page from a search engine results pageSearch engine results page
A search engine results page , is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of web pages with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the Keywords have matched content within the page...
, in most cases they will be redirect
URL redirection
URL redirection, also called URL forwarding and the very similar technique domain redirection also called domain forwarding, are techniques on the World Wide Web for making a web page available under many URLs.- Similar domain names :...
ed with a fast Meta refresh
Meta refresh
Meta refresh is a legacy method of instructing a web browser to automatically refresh the current web page or frame after a given time interval, using an HTML meta element with the http-equiv parameter set to "refresh" and a content parameter giving the time interval in seconds...
command to another page. Other forms of redirection include use of Javascript and server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
side redirection
URL redirection
URL redirection, also called URL forwarding and the very similar technique domain redirection also called domain forwarding, are techniques on the World Wide Web for making a web page available under many URLs.- Similar domain names :...
, either through the .htaccess
.htaccess
A .htaccess file is a directory-level configuration file supported by several web servers, that allows for decentralized management of web server configuration....
file or from the server configuration file. Some doorway pages may be dynamic pages generated by scripting languages such as Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
and PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
.
Doorway pages are often easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings. Sometimes a doorway page is copied from another high ranking page, but this is likely to cause the search engine to detect the page as a duplicate and exclude it from the search engine listings.
Because many search engines give a penalty for using the META refresh command, some doorway pages just trick the visitor into clicking on a link to get them to the desired destination page, or they use Javascript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
for redirection.
More sophisticated doorway pages, called Content Rich Doorways, are designed to gain high placement in search results without using redirection. They incorporate at least a minimum amount of design and navigation similar to the rest of the site to provide a more human-friendly and natural appearance. Visitors are offered standard links as calls to action.
Landing pages are regularly misconstrued to equate to Doorway pages within the literature. The former are content rich pages to which traffic is directed to within the context of pay-per-click campaigns and to maximize SEO campaigns.
Cloaking
Another form of doorway pages are using a method called CloakingCloaking
Cloaking is a search engine optimization technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the user's browser. This is done by delivering content based on the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of the user requesting the page...
. They show a version of that page to the visitor, but different from the one provided to crawlers, using server side scripts. They know whether it's a bot or a visitor based on their IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
and/or user-agent.
Construction
A content rich doorway page must be constructed in a Search engine friendly (SEF) manner, otherwise it may be construed as search engine spam possibly resulting in the page being banned from the index for an undisclosed amount of time.These types of doorways utilize (but are not limited to) the following:
- Title Attributed images for key word support
- Title Attributed links for key word support