Businesses that work in several cities often arrive at the same idea: one page for each city, “Plumber Cluj”, “Plumber Turda”, “Plumber Floresti”, with the same text and a different city name. Google calls them doorway pages (doorway pages) and treats them as spam. The penalty can hit the whole website, not just the copied pages.
What you'll achieve
- know what a doorway page is and how to recognize one;
- create local pages that help, for the cities where you really have something to show;
- know what to do instead, for the other cities.
What a doorway page is
A page is a doorway page if it exists only to catch a search and then sends the visitor to the same place, without telling them anything new. The signs:
- the text is the same on every page, only the city changes;
- you have no office, no projects and no customers to show in that city;
- the pages aren't linked from the menu and would make no sense to a person, only to Google;
- dozens or hundreds of automatically generated pages, one for every town in the county.
A simple test: if you delete the city name from two pages, can you still tell which is which? If not, they are doorway pages.
What helps instead
- A good services page that clearly says where you work: “We work in Cluj-Napoca, Floresti, Apahida and the rest of Cluj County”. For many businesses, that is enough.
- Google Business Profile, with your service area (see Google Business Profile: your company on Google Maps). For local searches, the map matters a lot.
- A local page only where you have something real to say: an office or a work location, projects done there, customers who agreed to be mentioned, conditions that differ (hours, lead times, travel fees).
The steps
A. Choose the cities
- Make a list of the cities you work in.
- Next to each one, note what you can concretely show: an address, projects, photos, customers, practical information that differs.
- Only create pages for cities with at least two or three real items on the list. Mention the others on your services page.
B. Write a local page worth having
- What you did there: 2–3 projects, with photos you took and a short description (what was requested, what you did, how long it took).
- Practical information: the address of the work location, if there is one; how quickly you can get there; the travel fee; your hours.
- What is specific to the place, if relevant: the type of buildings, local requirements, questions you often get from customers there.
- A review or testimonial from a customer in that city, with their consent. Don't make anything up: no reviews, no section.
- Link the page from the menu or from the services page, so a visitor can find it.
C. Check before publishing
- Put two local pages side by side. If the text is mostly the same, rewrite them or merge them.
- After publishing, check in Search Console (see Google Search Console: connect your site to Google), under Performance, whether the page appears in searches from that city.
D. If you already have doorway pages
- Merge the copied pages into a single services page, with the list of cities.
- For each page you remove, set up a permanent redirect (301) to the services page, so visitors and links to it aren't lost (see 301 and 302 redirects in Enhance).
- Keep as separate pages only those that pass the test above.
If something doesn't work
- After removing the copied pages, traffic drops for a while. That's normal for a few weeks, while Google reassesses the website. Copied pages usually bring few real visitors.
- A manual action for spam has appeared in Search Console. Remove the doorway pages (section D), then request a review from the Manual actions report, with a description of what you changed.
- Competitors have a page for every city and show up everywhere. Sometimes, for a while. The risk is theirs; for you, a good services page and a complete Google profile are the path that lasts.