Doorway Algorithm Update Affecting Location Based Pages?
-
Hi all,
I read this article concerning the doorway algorithm update - http://searchengineland.com/google-to-launch-new-doorway-page-penalty-algorithm-216974
This quote is what got my attention:
"How do you know if your web pages are classified as a “doorway page?” Google said asked yourself these questions:
- Is the purpose to optimize for search engines and funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site, or are they an integral part of your site’s user experience?
- Are the pages intended to rank on generic terms yet the content presented on the page is very specific?
- Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?
- Are these pages made solely for drawing affiliate traffic and sending users along without creating unique value in content or functionality?
- Do these pages exist as an “island?” Are they difficult or impossible to navigate to from other parts of your site? Are links to such pages from other pages within the site or network of sites created just for search engines?"
We utilize location based pages for ourselves and a few clients too.
**Example Case: **
-We attempt to rank for "keyword city/state" - "keyword city/state" - "keyword city/state"
The keywords will often be the same such as "AC Repair" or "Physical Therapy" etc. with city / state combination such as "Tulsa, OK" "Seattle, WA" etc.
The goal is to rank locally for those terms (NAP is applicable in some circumstances).
Does the above case classify as a Doorway page? According to that definition, it does. However, this is a business that services that area. Some don't have physical address there but they do service that area (whether it be AC Repair or Website Design). Please advise me as to what a doorway page is exactly & if my practice is in-line.
Thanks,
Cole
-
Hi Cole,
Unfortunately, yes - the set of pages being surfaced by Patrick would pretty much fit Google's definition of doorway pages, in my opinion.
The content has been duplicated across multiple pages, simply switching out the city names.
I recommend a couple of things here:
-
Read the thread I started about the doorway pages update when it rolled out: http://moz.com/community/q/how-google-s-doorway-pages-update-affects-local-seo
-
If you are currently developing these thin/duplicate content pages for yourself and your clients, this is definitely a great moment for you to rethink your strategy. It's my personal belief that content should only be published if it is unique and helpful. If you don't have unique content to publish on these types of city landing pages, then you don't have a reason to publish them.
Each local business that wants to cover cities in which they lack physical locations faces this same interesting challenge - identifying the legitimate connections between the business and the focus communities. These real-world connections need to be showcased on the landing pages. If they don't yet exist, the business needs to discover if the relationships can be developed and then showcased. If there are no opportunities for relationships, then these types of page don't really belong on the website in question.
Fortunately, a website design company has the opportunity to build direct relationships with its clients in the various cities it is serving. For example, if Alexandria is a city in which you have clients, your Alexandria page can be the place you write up these projects, including project descriptions, customer testimonials , video content, etc. When you've achieved showcasing, perhaps, five great clients on the Alexandria page, see what else you can do to make it unique. For example, does you company host or participate in industry events in this city? Sponsor a little league team there? Have a unique take on rising industries in the city? Anything you can think of that will demonstrate the strong relationship you've built on the business scene in a town will prove to new potential customers that you are very involved in serving businesses in their city.
There are no shortcuts here. Developing the writing for these pages calls for your greatest creativity and a decision to allot time and funding to creating city-related pages that are the gold standard in your industry and geographies. This mindset has always been appropriate, but now, with Google's doorway update, it has become a must.
- Recommend you also read:
-
-
Hi Patrick,
We also drive traffic to these pages via Adwords / Bing Ads.
What if we change the content on these pages slightly differently.
Would that be good?
For ex: having local information such as who you've served or how you serve them (via Skype) rather than in person.
Reason why is because we get some traffic from some of these locations.
Thanks,
ETA: you can't do a local listing (Google Business) without a physical address.
-
Hi Cole
Thanks for posting these. My opinion - it's the same content on all of these pages...
https://example.com/website-designer-alexandria-la/
https://example.com/website-designer-baton-rouge-la/
https://example.com/website-designer-lake-charles-la/
https://example.com/website-designer-new-orleans-la/So while you may do service in these areas, you're better off finding local listings and opportunities to promote your business in those areas. Maybe find Chamber of Commerce opportunities or something along those lines. You're also look specifically at Lousiana, so I would focus more at the level and mention throughout the site (without overdoing it) that you service particular areas if that's the case. If it's the whole state, there's no real need to do that.
Those are my suggestions. These pages don't provide any value and can be considered spammy and overoptimizing. You're better off looking at citation and listing opportunities and focusing at the state level rather than building out pages for cities. Does that all make sense?
Take a look at these:
Local Learning Center (Moz)
Local SEO (Moz)
Moz Academy (Moz - focus on Local section)
On-Page Factors (Moz)
Best Practices for URLs (Moz)Let me know if you have any more questions or comments. Good luck!
Edited: Links changed at request of OP.
-
I also believe one way we can improve is to have a paragraph in the middle talking about who / how we service that particular location.
We aren't hiding our navigation or other site features as some "doorway pages" do.
Thanks,
-
Hi Patrick,
Here is an example.
I'd like to take it down fairly quickly if I can get some feedback. I'd rather not have our example / client work available to the public for an extended time.
Thanks,
Cole
-
Hi Cole
Can you put a URL(s) in this so we can get a better idea of what you're trying to say? Your language is a tad confusing. It'd be easier to help if we can see an example. Let me know, thanks so much!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Our site dropped by April 2018 Google update about content relevance: How to recover?
Hi all, After Google's confirmed core update in April 2018, we dropped globally and couldn't able to recover later. We found the update is about the content relevance as officially stated by Google later. We wonder how we are not related in-terms of content being ranking for same keywords over years. And we are expecting to find a solution to this. Are there any standard ways to measure the content relevancy? Please suggest! Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Does Google considers the direct traffic on the pages with rel canonical tags?
Hi community, Let's say there is a duplicate page (A) pointing to original page (B) using rel canonical tag. Pagerank will be passed from Page A to B as the content is very similar and Google honours it hopefully. I wonder how Google treats the direct traffic on the duplicate Page A. We know that direct traffic is also an important ranking factor (correct me if I'm wrong). If the direct traffic is high on the duplicate page A, then how Google considers it? Will there be any score given to original page B? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Rel canonical on every page of wordpress CMS website
Can we have rel=canonical across all pages of a wordpress CMS website? I don't know why same page has been as canonical but not for duplicate pages
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Who else is noticing a shift in deeper pages ranking?
Without mentioning names, we're noticing a shift in many of our clients ranking pages. Previously many of them held page 1 positions with their home page. We've been building brand only anchor text to these pages for some time now and there's a noticeable change in visibility to the domain as a whole displayed in GWT and there's an uplift in organic traffic too. It just happens that some of our clients already had pages in the root directory that were very optimised for the clients' head terms, but all of a sudden, these sub pages with very few inbound links have started ranking in the place of the home pages. I've attached a screenshot of the landing page organic traffic. The pages in question have been there for at least 8-10 months. These inner pages would not normally have been able to hold their ground in this position and I'm concerned that this is a temporary change. I can see this going one of two ways; (i) home page beings to out rank sub page as before, (i) sub page loses ranking ability and home page rank does not come back. My questions to the community are therefore; **Has anyone else noticed this shift in ranking behaviour? ** What are everyone's thoughts on this? - Will it remain this way? From this query I can easily ask another wider question; Good advice across the internet says we should be building strong brand links and citations to our clients' domains. Typically brand links go to the homepage, which should provide the homepage and (to a lesser extent the domain) with a ranking/traffic/visibility uplift. However, as I'm noticing other pages now picking up ranking boosts as a result of this; **Should we still be trying to gain links to these more commercial landing pages? ** How are others building high quality links to pages full of commercial copy? I hope this can spark a little bit of a debate. I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts. Thanks yPOEjVA.png
Algorithm Updates | | tomcraig860 -
Not sure whether to update existing page or create a new one
Hello guys, So far I have found this Q&A to be very helpful. I have a couple of product pages on my website which rank very low in the search results. This was because in the past they were not at all optimized in terms of title, description, etc. I would like to now optimize these pages, get some inbound links to them, etc. I'm not sure whether to do this with the existing product pages or create new ones. I'm afraid that if I optimize the current pages, the low ranking from before will carry over. Would it be better to start fresh? Thank you, Pravin
Algorithm Updates | | goforgreen0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
After running a site analysis on here it has come up and said that I have a lot o pages with too many on page links and that this might be why the site is being penalized. Thing is I am not sure how to remedy this as one page that says it has 116 links is this one : http://www.whosjack.org/10-films-with-some-crazy-bitches/ Although there is only one link in the body Then again our home page has 165 http://www.whosjack.org which again it says is too many. The thing is is that surely it doesn't count on links all over the page as other wise every news homepage would be penalised? For example what would happen here on this home page? : http://www.dazeddigital.com/ Can anyone help me see what I am missing? Are there possible hidden links anywhere I should be looking for etc? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | luwhosjack0 -
Should I Wait Until the "Dust Settles" on the Algorithm Update or Get Busy Now?
We were hit hard on both of our sites yesterday and can't afford to wait for the dust to settle, as some folks are advising. We have been attempting to work off a penalty on one of our sites by undergoing a massive (and expensive) link removal project over the last four months. We are on our third reconsideration request and, hopefully, this last round of link removal will have done the job. I'm hesitant to go in and "de-optmize" the site by changing title tags and changing the anchor text until the penalty is removed, but I'm not sure if that's the right plan of action. I am, however, going to dig into the non-penalized site and change some title tags and anchor text. Any thoughts on this strategy would be greatly appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | rdreich490 -
Should I block non-informative pages from Google's index?
Our site has about 1000 pages indexed, and the vast majority of them are not useful, and/or contain little content. Some of these are: -Galleries
Algorithm Updates | | UnderRugSwept
-Pages of images with no text except for navigation
-Popup windows that contain further information about something but contain no navigation, and sometimes only a couple sentences My question is whether or not I should put a noindex in the meta tags. I think it would be good because the ratio of quality to low quality pages right now is not good at all. I am apprehensive because if I'm blocking more than half my site from Google, won't Google see that as a suspicious or bad practice?1