SearchDex and other static page providers

Anyone have an opinion on technology used by SearchDex and other static page services. Isn't it really just duplicate content presented in a URL friendly format? Seems like with Google Sitemaps, there really should be no need for a service like this? In fact, won't Google and other search engines frown on its use?

We're evaluating, so any feedback would be appreciated.

won't Google and other search engines frown on its use?

It looks like they already do--the site is banned in Google. And if that's any indication...

Make static pages yourself. This is the foundation of any SEO plan, having static pages to optimize, so if you are serious about an SEO initiative you should build these out yourself with some sort of grand SEO plan in mind. Once you have a template for doing it you can add, edit, or delete static pages as you see fit for far less then these guys are going to charge you.

Bill:

I'm curious - do you know for a fact that SearchDex has been banned from Google's index or are you assuming they have been banned because no pages in the searchdex.com domain are in the index? I noticed that SearchDex's site has a noindex, no follow meta tag - not sure why they would do that, but ....

The company I work for is a SearchDex customer, our relationship with them is mildly profitable, and I'm trying to evaluate whether we want to continue with them in light of Google's new Site Map program.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer - I really appreciate it.

Frank

Thanks for catching that. I didn't notice the noindex tag until you brought it up. Still, you've got to wonder why any company in this business would purposely ban the bots from spidering.

The bottom line is that whatever you want to call them, whether it's "informational pages", "doorway pages", "search engine visibility pages", whatever, they're just another name for search engine spam.

Hello!

I am actually in the process of researching this issue within the company that I work for... do you have any advice based on responses to your posting on SearchDex vs. Google Sitemaps?

Thanks!

After researching the subject, I discovered that SearchDex can produce static pages that are attractive to search robots. I also found that Google’s guidelines consider customer facing static pages to be acceptable. While it does appear that someone can develop these pages on their own to achieve plain visibility, how would one go about managing these pages to gain relevancy? Especially when attempting to rank for many key words. Does anyone have any experience on SearchDex's content management system?

I also found that Google’s guidelines consider customer facing static pages to be acceptable.

Customer facing pages are acceptable, but pages generated just to appeal to the search engines are not.

I haven't seen any specific examples of "searchdex pages", so I cannot comment on them specifically. However, from what is described on the searchdex site it isn't something that I would recommend--do not create pages just to appeal to the search engines, create pages for humans.

If you want a web page crawled and indexed, you need unique content, a search engine friendly URL, and a link to it.

how would one go about managing these pages to gain relevancy

When it comes to gaining relevancy, a page needs a link from another web page on the same topic (think Google LocalRank).