The dangers of Doorway pages?

Hey everyone!

An external SEO expert has recommended to use some domains that we own (about 25) to build doorway pages, i.e. single pages with some unique content that prominently link to our new main site. I don't yet have information on whether these sites would be hosted on different servers - which I'd highly recommend.

I know that such pages are unethical and therefore I am against implementing them and would recommend doing 301 redirects from those domains to our main domain.

My question is: What are the possible dangers in using doorway pages? As no inbound link can harm a site, our main could not suffer from these pages. The links could be heavily devalued, but that would still be at least as much as we'd get out of redirecting them, right? I doubt that there would be any inbound links to the doorway pages that could pass link juice to the main site via the doorway page (in which case a 301 would actually have more benefit).

So, is the danger simply that someone could report the scheme to Google which could then lead to a penalty of the main site? How does this work so that I can't kill my competitors by setting up a couple of doorway pages to HIS sites and reporting them?
Thanks everyone in advance for any info!

Edit: I have been looking at some earlier threads - for instance
http:// forums.seochat. com/search-engine-optimization-28/doorway-page-questions-48048.html
and
http:// forums.seochat. com/search-engine-optimization-28/meta-name-revisit-after-content-7-days-101-35636.html
- to get some info but could not find conclusive and current information.

No one? You guys in america must be awake by now ;-)

I would never implement doorway pages as google takes a very tough stance against these issues.Here is a small snippet from google guidelines

" Google's aim is to give our users the most valuable and relevant search results. Therefore, we frown on practices that are designed to manipulate search engines and deceive users by directing them to sites other than the ones they selected and that provide content solely for the benefit of search engines. Sites making use of these practices may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in Google search results. "

I would say DONT use doorway pages at all.

The danger is not someone reporting you.Google will automatically see it.

I wouldn't hire a seo now days that proposed any form of doorway pages. A good seo will be able to build up natural/semi-natural links to your site to help it rank, owning or being affiliated with sites linking to you can be hazardous. Yes the saying goes "no inbound link can hurt you" and that is true to a certain degree but Google can determine these sites are your own and you will get penalized. They don't always find out and if your good you can get away with it for a while but I wouldn't recommend it.

You answer your own question.. Dorway pages are usless in transfering trust if they have no trust. The only way these pages could help is if they have links. If you are going to build links build them to your site. Sack the SEO he is full of it.....

Thanks for the confirmations, guys! I know can defend my point knowing that several real experts agree with me
Good point to note that Google itself is intelligent enough to detect such schemes - a point that I missed in my post, so thanks for that, too!

Is the page an integral part of the contents of your website?

Do you link to the page in your site navigation?

If "Yes, Yes," then the page is not a doorway page. If "No, No," then the page is a doorway page.

Unfortunately, many, many pseudo-SEO consultants will tell you that doorway pages are the “only” way to get your site to the top of the heap; and will recommend you buy costly software that will churn these pages out, and fast.

However, all these doorway pages just create useless clutter in the search engine results.

If you have a site, and this site is on the Web, and you’re done your SEO homework, it eventually will be found. Every well-optimized site already has a natural entryway.

... can you be 100% certain of this? How about if you build this big, interlinking and incestuous network? Google is really smart and they might see manipulation here. IMO the dangerous links are the ones that you give to yourself.

WoW man...you called me a expert....

Look mama i am a expert now

(sorry can't rep)
EXACTLY right! I stay clear of any form of linkbuilding which involves me creating sites for the sole purpose of ranking my other sites. I interlink related sites but never in a shady manner, it is always open.