Micro-sites for Landing Pages?

[InformaticsInc]

We are working with a site that is difficult at best to update. The client intends to re-do the site in 18 months or so but needs to start generating more traffic (and sales) now. What are thoughts on creating landing pages as micro-sites that point to the current site conversion page as a stop gap? Beyond not sharing authority is there any known penalty? By the way they don't have tremendous ranking right now - often bottom of page two - and the micro-site won't duplicate any content.

[FedeEinhorn]

Couldn't that be considered as doorway pages? There's a penalty on doorway pages.

[KevinBudzynski]

I would advise against it. The potential downside would be great whereas the upside is neutral at best. Just create some informational content hooks on the current site and lead to the conversion pages (a subdomain would be better than the doorway page--but still not advisable).

[InformaticsInc]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. These pages would be on a sub-domain of their main site: landingpages.theirsite.com

But from Federico's answer that looks to make little difference.

[FedeEinhorn]

Actually it would be worse. As Doorway pages are pages that link to your domain from other domains. And subdomains are considered separate domains, therefore a page that its only purpose is to drive traffic to the main page is a doorway page, which is against google TOS.

[KevinBudzynski]

So a site that has an informational blog with information/reviews and links to the parent site is worse than one hosted on another domain? Don't wholly agree (and I mention not advisable)...

According to Matt Cutts, a subdomain is roughly an equivalent to a directory.  So I believe it is more of an issue of information architecture and gives an opportunity for informatics to create a workaround on the site that is difficult to update.

Subdomains are also viewed as internal links/not external links.

[FedeEinhorn]

Kevin, I think the question is what is the intent on those subdomains. As he points, he wants to generate more traffic, I inferred Google traffic by creating those subdomains, as such, those won't add anything to the main site besides the link to the main domain, which actually is a doorway page (correct me if I'm wrong).

[KevinBudzynski]

Federico--sounds good. Maybe I was focus more on the issue of the websites were difficult to update--and this would provide an avenue to update. My recommendation was to create informational pages that would link into the parent site does add value--and would not be perceived as a doorway page.

If the page is low-quality and does not provide user value it could be classified as a doorway page.

Have a good one