Definition of Mirror Site

[searsy]

Not sure if this is the correct section for this Q, but... Does anyone know what the exact definition of a "Mirror Site" is, or a good reference for SEO glossary terms? Thanks!

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums searsy! :hi:

A mirror site is a duplicate of your main site. It's built purely for the search engines and is almost 100% of the time spam.

[Alan Perkins]

The ODP editor guidelines (http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html) are a good general read.

[Note - I've posted the link to the Google cache because I'm having trouble accessing ODP at present]

[Daminc]

I spent some time a while ago creating glossary:

'Search Engine Glossary and Terminologies'

Its 319k (83k zipped up)

If anyone wants a copy give me a buzz in my private message thingy, along with where you want me to send it, and I'll send it to you.

[Bradley]

So what action is taking to prevent a major search engine from indexing a mirrored website? Will a robots.txt file be fine:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /



I look forward to your help regarding this issue.

[Daminc]

One of the tactics we use to employ here where I work was to make multiple mirrors of a site > optimise each one for a seperate main search engine > and then utalise a robot.txt file to prevent all but the required search engine from indexing it.

The benefits are minimal and you risk the danger of being marked as spam if the robots find a way through and register the sites as same content/different site.

We now work harder at producing sites that are more professional and don't require the 'tricks' of the trade. It takes a bit longer > it requires more research > and it's harder to create BUT the end product is a lot more satisfying to both us and the client.

Remember, if you are touting for more business, the best promotion to a potential client are sites that you have already built.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Bradley
So what action is taking to prevent a major search engine from indexing a mirrored website? Will a robots.txt file be fine:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /Perfect.

[rgcote]

We have a situation where we are not trying to trick the search engines. We registered two different domain names because we suspect people are going to commonly mistype the real domain. For instance, the two domain names are structured as:

www.abc-def.com

and

www.abcdef.com

just in case they forget to type the dash.

Internally, we've set up both domains to use the same document root so that they will appear to be mirror sites. Would it be better for us to make one domain simply redirect to the other? I don't want to get penalized by the search engines by appearing to have a mirror site when we are just trying to have two different domain names go to the same content.

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums rgcote! :hi:

Yes, just have one site and promote ONE domain only to the search engines and have other sites only link to that domain you are promoting. The other domain you can 'point' to the main site. Your server can do this easily.

You are fine as long as you only promote one of them and leave the other one alone.

[tbotech]

I have a similar situation with two domains. One with a dash and the other without.

What terminology do I use to tell my server that if someone types in the domain with the dash that they should actually end up on the one without the dash?

Is it "pointing" or "redirecting" or are those terms the same?

The reason we have them both is for misspellings only. I'm asking because I don't want to have two domains with the same content and get gigged for it. Our domain with the dash is one page only and all links on it actually go to the main domain without the dash. I had previously thought this would be ok but now I'm thinking it would definitely be frowned upon.

Thanks a bunch!

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by tbotech
What terminology do I use to tell my server that if someone types in the domain with the dash that they should actually end up on the one without the dash?

Is it "pointing" or "redirecting" or are those terms the same?"Pointing" and "redirecting" can mean lots of different things, some of which are better than others. :)

You want a HTTP 301 redirect from the domain with the dash to the domain without the dash.

[tbotech]

Thank you Alan! I'll get that changed ASAP.