A gateway page - also known as a doorway page - is a web page designed to rank for particular search queries without offering useful information or answering the user’s search query. Instead, the page will redirect the visitor to a different page.
Gateway pages exist with the sole purpose of boosting visibility and ranking better for less particular keyword phrases in search engine results pages (SERPs).
The issue with these doorway pages is that they provide little to no value to the user. They don’t give the desired information straight away and, rather, take the user down a labyrinth of links.
Their principal objective is to act as a “gateway” to a different page - hence the name.
There are several ways gateway pages work:
Gateway pages are an element of black-hat SEO.
In March 2015, Google announced its fight against doorway pages by making “ranking adjustments” to the algorithm. Since then, Google has cracked down on pages that disregard the user’s search experience and exist solely for search engines.
Sites that use doorway pages can get a manual action (penalty) from Google for “cloaking and(or) sneaky redirects” or “Thin content with little or no added value”.
Doorway pages exist primarily to rank higher for specific keyword phrases. But they add absolutely no value to the website visitors.
While we in no way condone - let alone recommend - the use of gateway pages, we believe it’s important to discuss them as part of common SEO knowledge. It’s easier to know what you can - and cannot - do when you’re familiar with black-hat tactics.
That brings us to learning to identify gateway pages.
Google’s updated definition of gateway pages, accompanied by examples, is outlined within the Quality Guidelines and makes it easier to determine what may be perceived as a gateway page.
When in doubt, ask yourself the following:
Using gateway pages goes against Google’s guidelines. But there are legitimate, white-hat SEO techniques you can use instead.
Yes, creating pages that rank in SERPs for multiple keywords is possible.
While you might create a page and optimize it with one primary keyword in mind, a high-quality, high-value page never ranks for a single keyword:
If you rank high for a particular search query, you’ll inevitably rank higher for its variations, as well. In fact, we found that the average page that ranked #1 in SERPs has also ranked in the top 10 for nearly 1000 other relevant keywords.
Try to stick to a single, popular topic that users would search for using the same words but slightly different queries - and create your content around that.
On that note, Ahrefs could help you gauge the search traffic potential of specific topics. There’s a metric called Traffic Potential in Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer that shows you how much traffic a top-ranking page is getting for a particular keyword.
It is not uncommon to see gateway pages that target long-tail keywords. These search phrases typically have a lower ranking difficulty and not as much competition in SERPs - making it even easier for these pages to rank higher.
Gateway pages are not the route you want to take - although you can still use long-tail keywords to your advantage through white-hat SEO practices.
Use Keywords Explorer to find thousands of long-tail opportunities around your seed keywords.
Forced redirects - primarily Meta refresh and JavaScript redirects - could cause your page to be perceived as ambiguous by your website visitors and send the wrong kind of message to search engines.
The issue is that they’re commonly seen in gateway pages. Even more so, they could adversely affect the indexing of your website’s pages, leading to search bots labeling them as spam, which would be a devastating blow SEO-wise.
That said, there are scenarios where redirects are unavoidable. And if you have to use them, do consider dropping Meta refresh and JavaScript redirects in favor of server-side 301 redirects.
So, check your site for Meta Refresh redirects, and replace those with 301 or 302 redirects. You can do that with the Site Audit tool; just look for the “meta refresh redirect” error.
Unlike doorway pages, which bring no value to a visitor, a well-made landing page provides actual relevant information about the product or service.
Most often, landing pages are not meant to receive organic search traffic. Their main purpose is to convert visitors into clients who “land” on the page after clicking an advertisement.
It’s not that hard to recognize a gateway page. They are generic, keyword-stuffed, and full of links leading to other pages within the same website.
If you click on a link and observe some form of redirection, that should also raise some red flags.
Content-rich gateways are, essentially, more sophisticated versions of gateway pages. They’re also designed to rank high in SERPs by focusing heavily on specific keywords and phrases but do so without using redirections. Instead, these pages feature navigation elements and designs similar to the main website page, which gives them a more natural, human-friendly feel.
Google has made it clear that it strives to effectively eliminate - or at least lower - the ranking of the so-called doorway pages because they compromise the quality of search results and harm the user’s search experience.
And as part of these efforts, Google allows you to report such pages using this form.
This will help Google tweak their algorithms.