What Google calls a doorway page
Google's spam policies describe doorway pages as pages made to rank for similar searches that all lead to the same thing. A set of suburb pages that are identical apart from the suburb name is the textbook example. Templated area pages were among the hardest hit in the September 2026 spam update.
The test before you build one
Would you actually send a van there this week? If not, don't make the page. A page for a suburb you rarely work in has nothing real to say, and that's the problem.
What a good suburb page has
- Real jobs you've done there, with photos.
- Reviews from customers in that suburb.
- Local detail that's actually true: older homes with a particular problem, the council's rules, how long it takes you to get there.
- Its own map showing that area.
- Links to the neighbouring suburb pages, not to every page you have.
How many to have
Fewer than you think. A handful of strong pages for the suburbs you work in most will do more than fifty thin ones. Start with the areas where you have the most jobs and reviews to show.
If you already have dozens
Check Search Console. Pages sitting in "crawled, currently not indexed" are Google telling you they're not different enough. Merge the weak ones, improve the ones with real work behind them, and remove pages for areas you don't actually serve.
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