A doorway page is a page built specifically to rank for certain search terms while sending visitors straight on to another page. Such pages usually offer little value of their own and exist mainly to capture search traffic.
Google treats them as a breach of its guidelines, because they do not take users directly to the content they were looking for.
How do doorway pages work?
Doorway pages are often produced in large numbers and aimed at very similar keywords or regions. The content barely differs between them. The goal is to cover as many queries as possible and funnel everyone to the same destination.
Typical characteristics:
- very similar content across many pages
- heavy targeting of individual keywords or cities
- automatic redirects to another page
- almost no value of their own for visitors
- many pages that all lead to the same offer
Why doorway pages are a problem
Google tries to show people content that is relevant and useful. Pages that exist only as a doorway to somewhere else usually fail that test.
Websites relying heavily on this approach can lose rankings or receive a manual action from Google. Modern SEO focuses instead on pages that stand on their own.