ALERT  -­‐  Google  Update

Google announced they are releasing a new “ranking adjustment” to their doorway page classifier to better handle doorway pages in the search results.

In short, Google does not want to rank doorway pages in their search results. The purpose behind many of these doorway pages is to maximize their search footprint by creating pages both externally on the web or internally on their existing web site, with the goal of ranking multiple pages in the search results, all leading to the same destination.

What  are  doorway  pages

• Pages  on  your  site  that  are  linked-­‐to  from  anywhere  • Don’t  have  any  unique  content  • Are  basically  just  setup  for  the  sake  of  ranking  for  a  

variety  of  different  keywords

Questions  to  ask  to  determine  if  you  have  a  Doorway  Page:

• 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?  

Are  you  “City”  pages  doorway  pages  according  to  Google?

• They  may  be  if  they  don’t  have  unique  content  from  one  city  to  the  next  

• They  are  blank    • They  are  not  linked  to  from  anywhere  on  your  site  

(exist  only  as  an  island  page)

How  to  make  your  City  Pages  work

• Make  sure  that  every  city  page  has  unique  content  • Leverage  technology  like  NearbyNow  to  

automatically  update  your  pages  with  unique  hyper  local  content  • Job  descriptions  • Geo-­‐modified  Heat  Map  • Customer  reviews  specific  to  that  sub-­‐city  

• Ensure  these  pages  are  linked  to  from  some  core  section  of  your  website

More  ideas  &  tips?

www.plumberseo.net/free  Or

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