What is a satellite page?

 

Why are we talking about doorway pages? 

A decade ago, major newspapers including the New York Times reported on companies using " dirty tricks " such as doorway pages to manipulate search engine rankings. This is why the term "satellite page" is now shrouded in mystery, many believe that it is a magic solution to obtain good results in the rankings of Google.  

If you too are one of those chasing the magic bullet, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you won't find it by looking at doorways. Even if, originally, they were designed to boost the ranking of websites, today they are more than likely to harm your SEO. Moreover, already at the time, BMW had lost all its rankings after using this technique . If you want to find a way to achieve top Google results, remember doorway pages aren't the answer. This article will show you why you won't find a doorway task in the rankingCoach digital marketing app. and why you should avoid this practice altogether. 

Bad examples of doorway pages

Another common misconception is that there are "good" and "bad" doorway pages and the right pages really work and can be used without risk! 

This idea is fueled by articles written by so-called digital marketing experts who are trying to achieve good rankings for the term "doorway pages". Those "click hunters" who write catchy headlines like "How I Used Doorway Pages to Improve My Rankings" are actually using another digital marketing technique. They use a series of pages that are very similar, but have nothing to do with doorway pages. What makes the specificity of a satellite page is the use of a redirect to deceive the user. 

To see two pages in the search results that look the same and immediately say they are doorway pages is to jump to conclusions and ignore the phenomenal advances Google's algorithm has made. Ten years ago, a well-ranked page on Google for a term not exactly what it was optimized for could have been proof of a satellite page. Today, it's more likely that Google has identified these terms as similar or interchangeable and is showing the same content because it thinks that's what the user wants to see.

A second example where doorway pages are not mentioned is that of several pages of the same site with identical or similar content, but which target different geographical areas, as can be seen in this screenshot of the HERZ site . These are not doorway pages because although the information on each of the utility rental pages is similar, it serves a very different purpose for each user. 

The content of the page targeting Bordeaux will be very similar to that of the page targeting Lyon, but the latter will not be useful to someone moving to Bordeaux. In this case, having multiple landing pages is not misleading, it makes sense and allows more clarity for visitors. 

But what is a satellite page then? 

The classic example of a satellite page is a simple HTML code with text filled with keywords. This type of page is generally not visible to website visitors because it automatically redirects Internet users to another page where the content they are looking for is found.

The technique used by BMW was a little different. Instead of redirecting Internet users from doorway pages, the German company turned its landing page into a satellite page. This practice was undetectable for an Internet user who visited the site with a browser with the standard configuration. It just came to a page with a lot of car images and not enough text.

However, when you turned off JavaScript, you were faced with a page full of text where the term Gebrauchtwagen ", or" used car "in German, came up 42 times . 

This is a good satellite page illustration because it shows that BMW attempted to mislead its visitors and the search engines by trying to assign the value of one page to another page. If the content of a page is intended to persuade the search engine that it contains essential information for Internet users, but that information is not visible to site visitors, there is a good chance that it it is a satellite page. 

Why are they better to avoid?  

Google's search engine has evolved so much since the BMW incident that it has become far too sophisticated to be fooled by doorway pages, no matter how far you try to hide them. Readability is a crucial ranking factor in terms of content and, if Google spots 42 keywords in a small piece of text, you can be sure that you will never rank in the results pages for that content because it will not be considered. easy and pleasant for your visitors to read.

Tip for SMEs: Digital marketing today emphasizes accuracy, not having as many keywords as possible. If you need help finding the best keywords for your site, you should try using the keyword tool built into the rankingCoach FREE app . 

What is Google's position on the subject? 

If you haven't guessed it yet, Google doesn't like doorway pages. The search engine also explains: 

" Satellites are harmful to Internet users because they can cause many similar pages to appear in search results. So by clicking on each result the user is always redirected to the same destination ." 

As mentioned earlier, doorway pages are an abusive technique that goes against one of Google's main commandments: never mislead the user. In order to train its webmasters, Google has created a list of questions that webmasters must ask themselves to identify potential doorway pages:

1. Does this page exist only for search engines and only redirect visitors to a specific section of your site or is it an integral part of your site visitor experience?
2. Is this page a copy of another page or an element of another page and does it exist only to show up for many keywords in search engines? 
3. Is your page an "island"? That is, is it complicated to navigate to and from this page?  
4. Are the links on this page intended for search engines only? 

In conclusion : 

• Doorway pages were created to redirect traffic but they don't add value to your visitors; 
• They mislead Internet users and search engines;
• They were used by many notorious websites which were then sanctioned: 
• They can no longer help you improve your SEO. 

Finally, if you think you are smarter than everyone else and can invent a new type of doorway page, know that Google will do everything it can to identify the techniques you use and, when they find them, it will not. 'will not hesitate to sanction you by causing you to lose your rankings.   

But how do I improve my search engine rankings? 

If you really want to top the rankings and get more visitors to your site, don't waste your time trying to fool Google and focus on your SEO strategy instead. Improve your site optimization so that Google can easily scan and index its content and create quality content around a few well-chosen keywords using rankingCoach FREE . This will increase your site traffic without the need for doorway pages.