How to create ethical "doorway" pages?

[sushi rider]

Could someone please explain how to create ethical "doorway" pages?

I would like to SEO my employer's dynamically generated site, which is a huge database of UK clubs. The individual page URL's include dynamic strings and session ID's.

As I understand doorway pages are:


Static pages specially optimised for one search engine and 1-3 keywords
Stand on their own, separate from the rest of a site (feature a logo, some text and a link that encourages visitors to enter the site)
Present unique and useful information, therefore search engines won't ban them.
And one can not create more doorway pages than there are "real" pages on the site


However, I am concerned when creating doorway pages as to unknowingly committing unethical SEO practice and being rejected by search directories.


Can the doorway pages have the same branding (logo and navigation bar) as the main site, though display unique content?
Can the doorway pages sit as stand alone pages within the site or should they have different URL’s?


I just don’t want to get my wrists slapped! In advance thank you ever so much for replying.

[David Wallace]

Is there a reason why the dynamic URLs cannot be indexed such as containing too many parameters (this is besides the session IDs)? Seems that if this is the only problem, you might do a mod rewrite. As for the session IDs, how are they being set? can an exception be made for spiders?

The problem with creating a bunch of doorway pages is #1 - search engines frown on them and #2 they are usually orphaned pages and are therefore not linked into the site. Unless they are somehow linked into the site, they will not have good PR and probably won't rank well.

Bottom line is that if you already have tons of great content but are having problems getting it indexed, I'd look at trying to resolve that first before creating a bunch of additional pages.

[NFFC]

>I'd look at trying to resolve that first before creating a bunch of additional pages.


Thats great advice sushi, I'd take it.

[sushi rider]

thank you... i'm so delighted to get a two replies! I must confess i have been concerned about using doorway pages.

as to David's repsonse:

Is there a reason why the dynamic URLs cannot be indexed such as containing too many parameters (this is besides the session IDs)? Seems that if this is the only problem, you might do a mod rewrite. As for the session IDs, how are they being set? can an exception be made for spiders?

alas i come from a web design back ground and don't understand the creation of dynamic URL's.

an example of one of our url's is

nameofcompany.com/pls/cgi-bin/page_pls_user_sresults?x=542513112102&y=833190&p=1&s=63251027&z=3746&s_type=&nrp=&self_study=

Cuurently only our homepage is being indexed.

Thank you again for your replies!

[St0n3y]

As stated above, doorways should NOT be implemented but that does not mean that you can't create static pages properly integrated into the site, each with valuable unique content. But the best proceedure would be to optimize the exisiting pages. Using a Mod rewrite will allow you to create "static" urls instead of the long dynamic ones.

[sushi rider]

thank you all very much for replying to my question!

i will now look through the threads on how to "Mod rewrite" :eek: