Google to launch ranking adjustment to address growing “doorway page” problem in search results

Google today, in a post on its Webmaster Central Blog, has reveled that it will soon launch a ranking adjustment to search results to better address sites that “maximize their search footprint without adding clear, unique value.” This problem occurs when a user searches for a topic and sees a page of results all from the same website, which Google says creates for a frustrating user experience.

Google calls these doorway pages and says that if they are created solely for search engines, they can severely harm the search experience for users. Google explains:

“Over time, we’ve seen sites try to maximize their “search footprint” without adding clear, unique value. These doorway campaigns manifest themselves as pages on a site, as a number of domains, or a combination thereof. To improve the quality of search results for our users, we’ll soon launch a ranking adjustment to better address these types of pages. Sites with large and well-established doorway campaigns might see a broad impact from this change.”