Dear Robin,
I manage a finance website, based in the UK The website consists of index page and some 13 other pages – each on a separate finance issue I am attempting to optimize the index page, and some of the more important of the other pages – to be acceptable to Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Overture uk, Aol + the main directories like ODP.
Question:
If I, for example, optimize my index page to be acceptable to Google, then this page would not be optimized correctly for the directories as they consider more restrictive practices on for example title length, word count etc. With only one domain for the site, how do I get round this?
p.s. I am aware of “doorway pages”, but there is a lot of advice on the net saying to steer clear of this practice.
Thank You,
Colin Yule
direct finance ( gb ) ltd
www.direct-finance-gb.co.uk
Dear Colin,
I quit optimizing separate pages for the individual search engines a LONG time ago. Though you couldn’t prove it by the amount of time I spend online, I *do* have a life (sort of!).
If you optimize your pages in a very general way, which is what I personally do and recommend, there’s NO reason why the ODP and other directories won’t like them. The directories don’t consider the actual title tags — they consider the titles that you list on the submission form.
The directories don’t consider word count either, unless your site has absolutely no content in it whatsoever, so why index it.
As far as “doorway” pages are concerned, the engines don’t like the “old” doorway pages, which is where the page has no value to it whatsoever, often has just one word on the page (the keyword), and often was filled with nonsense sentences with just the keywords swapped out. The old doorway pages often had a lightning fast redirect on them that went into the “real” site, which the engines didn’t like either.
The new “doorway pages” are totally different. Think about it this way. Every page of your site is a “doorway” or “window” into your site. What do the engines want to see when they visit your site through any of those windows? Valuable content. What do your users want to see? Valuable content. Give them BOTH what they want to see, and your keyword specific pages (those additional windows into your site) will be just fine.
Many SEO’s have gotten away from the term “doorway” pages because of the negative connotation. I call them content-rich information pages, or gateway information pages.
It really doesn’t matter what you call them as long as you provide valuable content on them. If the content is valuable, there’s also NO reason why you wouldn’t or couldn’t put a link to that page on the main page of your site or on your site map. After all, you’ve created valuable content. 🙂
Robin
Robin Nobles conducts live SEO workshops
(http://www.searchengineworkshops.com) in locations across North
America. She also teaches online SEO training
(http://www.onlinewebtraining.com). Localized SEO training is now
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