Search Engine Doorways

One of the problems with search engines is that they are not human. They use completely different criteria to us when evaluating a site - mostly based on their analysis of text and/or meta tags.

There is a real danger that if you manage to optimise a given web page to achieve a high ranking with a search engine, it may turn out to be very unattractive to a human visitor. Of course, web pages are designed for a human audience - so we mustn't get carried away with obsessions about search engines!

One solution to this problem is to use what is sometimes called a 'doorway' or 'gateway' page. A doorway page is designed to present a condensed chunk of information, focusing perhaps on one product or service, so that it gets a high ranking with a search engine for just one or two keywords. A doorway page is not seen by visitors once they have reached the web site. Only when a target visitor sees the page listed in the results for a given keyword or phrase in a search engine list, does it get any human attention. A visitor landing at a doorway page via a search engine can then see what the main web site is about and choose to click on a link to take them there - or not.

A doorway is like an intermediate signpost between a search engine and a web site. Doorways can be a very effective means of improving a site's ranking, without having to change the site itself. A web site can have hundreds of doorways targeting many specific keywords and even tuned for individual search engine ranking criteria.

Doorways are thus particularly appropriate for web sites with many different products or services to promote, as the keyword dilution factor (so many keywords competing with each other on any given web page) can result in low rankings all round.