mirror sites - yes or no?

[jammwolf]

I was approached by a company in the states - supposed one of the biggies in affiliate marketing and such - they asked me to partner with them with respect to SEO work - they would send me their client info, images, keyphrases and I would have to build a site around it. Then basically I would receive a commission based on sales or leads
generated off that site.

Being the curious individual that I am I did a wee bit of investigating. They gave me a sample site to look at and this is what I
found. The sample site was a duplicate of one of their own client sites *they build sites for their clients themselves* - though the NEW site had a different domain name - where their ORIGINAL client site had somewhat of an image map and images showing the subsections - the NEW site had text links - yet when you crawled down to a sub-form on the NEW site - it was the exact duplicate of the ORIGINAL site forms - in
fact if you clicked on the NEW site form for more info it automatically went right into the ORIGINAL client site - *hope i'm making sense here* - isn't this technically a mirror site - or is this creative
"things you can get away with" - in the realm of the internet world??

[hbird64]

A few years a go when I was an editor at GO.com, I found out that someone was submitting each time two sites, one of them was the original site and the other was more or less a portal to the original one. The portal had a lot of text (sometimes also available on the original) and not much more. All portals were removed. I think this guy(M/F) was working for the same company who approached you.

Hugo

[jammwolf]

thats definitely a possibility - the company told me they have at least 20 SEO's working for them - so basically is this considered a no no? - that's what i need clarification on - because mainly i don't want to join the ranks if it is *shrug* thanks for the info though

[jammwolf]

especially hbird64 when i've been doing pretty well with my clients - who I do not get via this method of affiliation - more or less - I deal directly with the client myself

[hbird64]

If you make money with it and you can live with the thought that you are creating portals, why not? If you don't put your name on these sites, your real clients will never know.

Hugo

[jammwolf]

hmmmmm - makes sense - so when submitting to search engines and you have to give them an email contact you give the client's name? - ALSO you mentioned that when you worked as an editor with GO - that all portals were removed - did this included the original site - or EVERYTHING affiliated with the duplicates?

[JamesR]

from an SE standpoint, you really don't want to do that. That was one of the first major filters implemented was taking about duplicates. Sometimes they still get in but it is playing with fire. If you need them for a marketing standpoint, block the SEs totally on all dupes and let them only spider your main site.

[jammwolf]

ah ha - an individual who has been registering my fears *laughter* another thing that concerned me too James was a recent article I read *not sure of the exact location right now as SEO reading can get quite overwhelming* however it referred to a list being published *not sure if its inktomi - hmmmmm* where their Blacklist got accidently published and it appeared to be blacklisting according to SEO's - i.e. if they noticed a particular SEO company was following "sneaking no good tactics".....i think it was planet ocean or searchengine news...hmmmmmmm

[agerhart]

Jamwolf, we discussed it briefly in this thread: [webmasterworld.com...]

[jammwolf]

thanks agerhart - i'll pop over for a view - i have no problem with the desire to make money - however when you know you can be good at something - you also want to make sure you don't do things that are going to hurt you in the long run - wow - research - reading and more research - a seo dream come true *laughter*

[jammwolf]

note to agerhart - like your site!

[jammwolf]

i also printed off 23pages from that thread - good reading for the subway ride home - thanks!

[agerhart]

>> like your site!

Thanks Jammwolf!

[jammwolf]

so agerhart - when i started out in seo - *yup i'm a newbie - this is my 2nd "successful" year doing it* - i heard that if you had a company site with i.e. 5 products - it was recommended that you could set up 5 mini-sites - showcasing each "individual" product - you could "introduce" them via a main site - but your relevant content had to be "spread out" correctly - is this still a common practice - or is this another "no no" (there seems to be more "no no's" these days then "yes'"

[jammwolf]

this sort of ties in with the whole duplicating thingy - but would it be interpreted as not "exactly" duplicating??