When you think of search engine optimization, in all likelihood, gateway pages, doorway pages or informational pages probably come to mind. For years, these have been the method of choice for many Web marketers. If you're a search engine optimization specialist, many clients may even come to you requesting these types of pages.

They think they need to use gateway pages because they believe the following statements to be true:

Every search engine has a different algorithm (formula) to determine the ranking of a Web page, and therefore no one page will rank high in all of the engines. Therefore, we must create totally different pages for each search engine. Keyword-rich copy that the search engines will like, is not text I can visibly put on my site where people can see it, especially not on my front page!
Our site needs to be on the cutting edge and use Flash animation and/or lots of graphics. Since the search engines can't index these very well, I have to use gateway pages.
Although there is a grain of truth to these statements, there are good reasons why gateway pages aren't the most effective method for getting high rankings in search engines.