Google getting tough with doorway pages

Google appears to be taking a harder look at SE spam with doorway pages...something that is definately a problem on their site. Special
interest at the moment seems to be on pages originating outside of the USA.

BMW Germany got zapped for this according to this article.

I do find it interesting that it mentions in the article that google is talking to BMW and that BMW feels they may be able to talk their way back in to search results..... try getting google to talk to you if you get banned for something you feel you did not do. Bet you won't have the same results as BMW! :)

And here is the Blog where a software engineer at google discusses the stance on this issue. I think I'll bookmark this guy's blog as a harbinger of things going on at google.

Quality Guidelines - Basic principles:

* Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."
* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
* Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
* Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:

* Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
* Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
* Don't send automated queries to Google.
* Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
* Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
* Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

hopefully it will get rid of a lot of the crap that comes up :D

cheers,
Luke