SEO for database driven websites

I am having a website built that is purely database driven. I am told that because it is database driven, by nature it is difficult to get high rankings on search engines. One "Search Engine Optimizer" has told me about using gateway pages to get higher rankings. Another has told me that using gateway pages will get me blacklisted by the major search engines. Does anybody have any insight and/or other techniques used?

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SEO UK|Search Engine Marketing