What are CPA doorways and how to make money with them?

For most people, CPA doorways do not possess any useful information, but for webmasters, however, it is a helpful tool to earn profits. 

Among many available free resources, doorway traffic is a living niche that continues to bring profit even in 2022.

There were times when a dozen doorways could bring up to 20 thousand unique users. Now they are used less often, as such, this topic practically does not hold much discussion on the forums. However, SEO traffic has not ceased to be a lucrative source. Visitors that come from doorways as a pure and organic form of traffic are accepted by almost all affiliate programs. With skillful use, this continues to be a relevant tool for many affiliates.

In this article, we will try to take a closer look at what doorways are and how to make money with them.

What are the types of doorways

The doorway is an auto-generated site tailored to key queries on the topic of the offer and does not carry any semantic load. Such sites are promoted to show up on the first positions of search results, and then redirect traffic to the advertiser’s site directly or through the pre-landing page. This is in a way a type of “search spam”.

Creating such resources almost always results in the webmaster violating the rules of search engines. Given the impracticality of doorways for users, search engines mercilessly ban them. Therefore, the disadvantage of doorways as a free source of traffic is that you need to constantly create new ones. All doorway sites are divided into several categories.

White doorways

White doorways can be somewhat useful (although not very informative for people). They are filled with original content, but after clicking on the link, the user will be immediately redirected to the target site.

Gray doorways

Gray doorways include sites with more or less normal content, the task of which is to transfer link content to the target resource and raise it to higher positions in search results.

Black doorways

Black doorways contain resources that the user does not even get to, as they are immediately redirected to the advertiser’s website. In addition to the redirect, click-unders are used here – in this case, the site can be filled with relatively normal content.

There is another classification of doorways, depending on the content:

Text

This is the most popular doorway used, which contains text with keys and links. Usually, the text is automatically made unique using special programs.

Download-doorways

Sites for downloading programs, music, and images, with the content of key queries in the alt and links to the target resource.

Doorways based on social networks

The so-called “social” doorways are generated for free based on profiles or communities in social networks. The sites are created with text content containing keywords or uploaded video files with an added link to the target resource.

Today, doorways that immediately redirect to an affiliate program are much less common. Most give access to content and do not automatically redirect users. If we analyze the results in different areas, we can see that white and gray doorways bring more profit, as they can exist for a longer period before being blocked. Many webmasters however continue to cloak and distribute traffic using TDS.

Doorway formatting – how to competently make a doorway?

The proper formatting of doorways should take into account all the factors that affect the ranking:

• relevant content – ​​site optimization using key queries;
• link spam – using specifically designed software, create and leave more links or buy links for cheap on the exchange market.

So, let’s say you decide to drive traffic to an affiliate program using doorways, where should you start?

This journey is not the easiest. That’s why we created a beginner-friendly step-by-step guide on making doorways for use with CPA:

1) Buy a domain with no tarnished history or a completely new address.

2) Choose hosting taking into account the size of the future site and the expected number of visitors.

3) Before creating a doorway site, we analyze the keys which will be used for the site promotion. To do this, we take a high-frequency query, several low-frequency ones, cluster the semantic core, and distribute the clusters across the pages of the site. At this point, it becomes obvious that you should have at least a basic experience in SEO 😉

4)Now we will need to fill the site with optimized content – the text can be ordered from SEO copywriters and/or copied for free from another resource, and edited with the software for uniqueness. We then place text content and assign meta tags and headings.

5) Next, set up a redirect to the target source – a redirect or a click-under, using scripts or special services.

6) Now let’s move on to promoting the doorway. For external site optimization, buy inexpensive links or format behavioral factors if you have created the site with adequate content.

7) As soon as the site gets to the TOP of the results for certain search queries, you will start receiving doorway traffic. But sooner or later, the resource will be sent to a ban or a filter will be applied.

Doorways generators and other software to create your dream doorway

On one hand, like any site, the doorway should not be filled with meaningless text, but with high-quality content to get into the index and stay there for some time. But on the other hand, in the future, a permanent ban will still be applied to it due to a large number of keys. As such, one doorway site alone will not bring profit. You can, however, create as many of them as you like and not spend a lot of time with the help of doorway generators. These are programs that automatically create such sites (PandoraBox, JakoDorgen PRO, thunder, SED, d-zeus, Zennoposter, SEODOR, etc.). You can make a whole PBN network to promote the main site and place links to affiliate offers there.

Where to get a domain to create a doorway

There are several options for creating doorways, depending on the chosen domain.

Method	Pros	Cons
Registering a new domain	Free hosting; No restrictions from search engines; Can be selected by the topic of the offer	Promotion of a doorway with a domain that has no history is more difficult
Using a Drop (Expired Domain)	This domain is easier to promote because:  it has “age” and history;  might have remaining links still on the domain;  might have a high level of user trust	There may be restrictions on search engines; Existing links may be of poor quality
Abandoned Domain	It doesn’t need to be paid; You can find an abandoned domain with an existing history	There may be remaining restrictions from search engines; The previous owner may decide to re-claim the domain; There is a possibility that the validity period will expire soon
Subdomain	A personal subdomain from site generators with a good reputation is easier to promote; In most cases, you don’t have to pay for it.	Admin can drop your subdomain; The validity period of the cpa-doorway and the domain name are interconnected; Difficult to find
Creating a subdomain on Pi	Can immediately get a site with a good reputation; You will start receiving traffic right away	Refers to “black” methods; Doorways on Pi exist for a matter of days or even hours To illegally create a subdomain on someone else’s resource, you need to receive access to it

The best option for creating a doorway is a drop domain. There is only one difficulty here – it is difficult to find among search engines a vacant domain name with a good reputation. Opportunities like this disappear as quickly as they appear. There are quite a few specifically designed programs to tackle this challenge and help webmasters with monitoring drop domains.

Traffic will flow much faster coming from drop doorways. You can promote doorways in Telegram channels, link to the doorways in comments and blogs. VK and Facebook are actively fighting drop doorways, so here you just might need to resort to spam.

The easiest way to create doorways is on WordPress as the search engines are well-tuned to such sites, they are easy to fill with content and disguise as a “white” project.

How to make money on doorways

Auto-generated websites have been popular for over a decade. Since then, search algorithms have learned to deal with them quite successfully. With the advent of new filters, Yandex and Google began to massively and uncompromisingly punish doorways. Creating a few drop doorways, and parsing content with keys using the old database is now not enough. To get good traffic, you need to invest, spend time, and master useful software.

Download

Sites for download are conditionally divided into media and software. Here, users are offered to download software or music, but only after viewing ads (for which the webmaster will receive a reward). Affiliates monetize traffic by wrapping the file in a downloader. The user, along with the program or music, receives the advertiser’s product on his device. Doorways for download were among the most promising not so long ago, today there are much fewer of these affiliate programs (and not all of them are profitable).

Gambling

Doorways for gambling are usually created under the mirrors of online casinos, online poker, and slot reviews. There are also download doors, which are monetized according to the same principle as a download. Partners receive profit not for registration, but for downloading gaming software. The doorway is a good source of traffic for gambling.

Betting

In the same way, doorways are made for betting (bets on sports and eSports). The audience in search of promotional codes and working mirrors helps affiliates earn a percentage of RevShare. Here, doorways can collect traffic under the mirror of a bookmaker, and monetize with offers from others which does not prevent webmasters from finding active players.

Dating

There are many ways to make money on dating: some generate pages with key queries on drops, others post romantic stories and links to a dating site, and others focus on dating sites with educational content. Or you can simply post a link to the Dating SmartLink.

Crypto

Doorways for cryptocurrency are not common. But given the relationship of social networks to this vertical, doorways remain one of the ways to get free traffic. Here you can only come up with pages with cryptocurrency rates, but even then the conversion rate will be weak (and just imagine the competition for key queries).

It is more profitable to monetize traffic from crypto doorways designed for download. On these sites, users are offered to install a desktop version of wallets or set up cloud services.

Finance

Any offers in this niche are distinguished by high CPA and serious competition. In 2022 it was extremely difficult (but possible)to bring such doorways to the TOP even with high-quality content. If you choose the topic of microloans, you don’t need to invest much, but simply sparse the content, dilute it with synonyms, format behavioral factors and be at the TOP. It is worth noting that it is quite difficult to work with large banks and their bank card offers.

Essay

Education is one of the top verticals for doorways. There is fairly high competition, but there is enough traffic for everyone. There are plenty of affiliate programs, you can send traffic from post-Soviet countries or try targeting Western countries. As a rule, students who look for essays, diplomas, and completed exam work give more profit.

Where to send doorway traffic – choosing a CPA program

As we mentioned above, most affiliate programs accept doorway traffic. Before creating a doorway for CPA, carefully examine the offer or check with the manager whether your doorway traffic will be accepted. LosPollos accepts almost all traffic, including SEO. Thanks to our SmartLinks you can monetize on visitors for almost any vertical.

P.S. Now that you know the basic information about doorways, you can begin to fully test this source. But we would like to note that you need to be prepared for a long and hardworking journey to achieve stable results.