What is a gateway page ?

Hi there. Its a term I've heard banded about quite a bit and I "think" I know what it is, but as always Im not certain and could easily be wrong.

So what is a gateway page ?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Agateway+page+

Back in the good old days of SEO......... When I first started doing SEO in the mid 1990s the way to win was to do different pages for diiferent keywords on different Search engines. These pages all had their own domain/subdomain and were just one page. They all linked to your money site. I rememebr having thousands of them all well and truely keyword stuffed. one site --- thousand of doorways...

Now they are next to useless. May work in some circumstances but can get you penalized if court.

Ok, Still not really sure I understand the concept. Think I need to ask it in another way.

My site is about a certain subject, but that subject can be divided up into several small subsections. My site is divided into about 8 or 9 sub sections/categories. Then in each of these sub sections there is lots of pages of information.

For each category/subsection I have 1 page which acts as in index for that category. On that page is excerpts from all the pages in the category with a link to each page. Its a bit like having a home page for each sub category.

Are these mini home pages what some people term gateway pages ? And are they good or bad practice ?

Thanks for your patience - Glenn

No they are landing pages. There fine. Gateway/doorway pages are pages on a different domain that are just a single page optimised to a keyword that then direct you back to the main site. landing pages ie different pages within the onesite optimized to different keywords are fine.

Thanks Gazzhk thats good. I was calling them gateway pages by mistake, then I read somewhere they were bad practice so I worries myself. Its easy to get confused with these terms.