Re: 404 / Doorway Ads?

From: R Rensch <randy_at_rensch.com>
Date: Fri 02 Mar 2001 12:55:33 -0600

CHRISTOPHER ULRICH <culrich_at_cydian.com> WROTE:

> I've seen services that buy traffic - either 404
> pages or search engine doorway pages that are
> currently not being used by a targeted site.

Aha, that would explain a few experiences. I'm not familiar
with such a service, but I can give one person's impression:

a) if the "advertiser" is a hosting service or such, I can
assume the target site has disappeared. Why else a "parking"
page?

b) if it's an irrelevant ad and I don't understand why I'm
seeing it, I'm likely to be less than thrilled with either the
website or the search tool.

c) in that case, the search tool would be getting a bum rap,
and it, too, should be less than thrilled with the site.

d) if you value potential visitors to your "used" pages, you
should be using these old pages to send them there. Ideally,
the unused pages should be modified so they have some
content, because a blank page or a fast redirection could
cause them to get dropped (although they don't seem to get
dropped very quickly at all in actual practice). Repurpose
the URL, summarize the old content, summarize or rephrase
the new content, leave content as-was but with a big graphic
link,... be creative. ( Somewhere there are lines between
being a convenience for the searcher, duplicate content, and
spamming, but let's skip that for now.)

But, as I said, I'm admittedly not familiar with the actual
services. If they can take these issues into account without
defrauding the search engine, it's an interesting idea for some
situations, at least until the pages are reactivated, or get
dropped from the indexes in the normal course of things.

Randall Rensch
marketing communication creative concepts
randall_at_rensch.com www.rensch.com



Received on Fri Mar 02 2001 - 12:55:33 CST