Mirroring Existing Site to Create More Traffic?

[kazisdaman2]

I have a website dedicated to engines, and creating another domain that people frequently search.

Can I use my new site and mirror the existing one, because they are both somewhat related.

Or is mirroring sites against google's rules? and other search engines?

[kazisdaman2]

And this has to due with generating more ad revenue through adsense.

[jchampliaud]

What do you mean by 'mirroring'?

[kazisdaman2]

Ok

Say I have about of engines on my site.

And I want to create another site that has lets say wallpapers for that site.

Well on the original site I have engine stuff and wallpapers. I want to create another site enginewallpapers.com so it shows up on search better.

I mean by mirroring a direct copy of the other site, its a function that my host has. Basically two sites are the same exact content, except for different urls. They aren't redirected, they are seperate sites, same content.

[humblebeginnings]

So you want to duplicate your site.
If your question is about Adsense, and if you wish to put your Adsense code on 2 sites that are exactly the same: no it's not alllowed.

[Bddmed]

And if it's not about Adsense it's still a bad idea. Duplicating content is something all the search engines frown about.

[kazisdaman2]

ok thanks that whats I was thinking but couldnt find it in the TOS or anything.

thanks everyone!

[jomaxx]

Whoa, wait a sec. Who says it's not allowed? Where is this documented? Just because you don't approve of something doesn't mean it's against the AdSense TOS.

However I certainly agree that it won't work as a traffic-building idea.

[OptiRex]

It wouldn't be difficult to make them "different" even with ostensibly the same content however how well and quickly it would rank would be another thing if the original did not have good back links.

[humblebeginnings]

Come on Jomaxx, you must know this drill:

Do not create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

[jomaxx]

And you must know that this is a "guideline" that carries about the same weight as this one next to it:

Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

There are plenty of legitimate reasons for having duplicate content. Google even allows AdSense to run on DMOZ and Wiki and public domain content clones. Google's search algorithm will try to filter you out, so as I said this is not exactly a winning strategy, but I've never heard of anyone getting into trouble with the AdSense team for it.

[humblebeginnings]

Interesting point Jomaxx. It looks like the Webmaster Guidelines are, in your point of view, more like advice, rather than rules?
To me that would be an eye opener.

[jomaxx]

No, I don't think I said that. Breaking some of those guidelines can bite you, especially if you're doing so to game the AdSense system (e.g. keyword stuffing to attract expensive ads). But these two examples are frequently violated without any consequence, for many legitimate purposes.

If anyone at WW can think of a case where a webmaster ever got into trouble for having a mirror site or for having too many links on a page, feel free to refresh my memory.

[jetteroheller]

Best You read in the Google search forum all about

June 27
July 27
August 17
September 15

all the theories with dublicate content, just because indexed as www.example.com
example.com

And You will get such a panic about mirroring a site, that You even do not want to think about it.

[Juan_G]

Mirroring Existing Site to Create More Traffic?

More traffic? No, if you depend on Google serps, most probably the same traffic or no traffic, since at least the duplicates, or even the original sometimes, are usually considered serp spam and dropped by the search engine.

There are special cases like domain aliases (such as vanity domains .com, .net...), if done properly with a clearly preferred domain (base href tag, 301 redirect...), but even in this case they try to rank only one copy on regular serps. The rest go to supplemental, etc.

[edited by: Juan_G at 9:10 am (utc) on Oct. 16, 2006]

[OptiRex]

all the theories with dublicate content, just because indexed as www.example.com
example.com

IMHO it is Google themselves who have created this problem.

Why do I say this?

For nigh on 15 years I have always constructed all my sites and submitted them without www however this past year more and more referrals have come to my site using www to the extent I now have www.example.com in my URL channels just to check since it amounts to 16.78% of all referrals whereas a year ago it was just 1.36%.

I can only find one major source of these www's and that is through AOL.

Just how did that www get there if it were not Google?

It certainly is not through backlinks since there are simply far too many pages referred every day using the www prefix.

Or is mirroring sites against google's rules? and other search engines?

Strangely, or maybe not so when considering it all, sometimes a mirrored site using a different URL ranks much better in Yahoo! and MSN...and please don't ask me why!

[StuntasticAudi]

It says its not allowed but do they really care...I dont think so. Google has many terms of use that they dont follow themselves. There are tons of sites out there that are pretty much the same..just different domain name.

[StuntasticAudi]

It says its not allowed but do they really care...I dont think so. Google has many terms of use that they dont follow themselves. There are tons of sites out there that are pretty much the same..just different domain name.

[farmboy]

In one post in this thread, someone wrote:

If your question is about Adsense, and if you wish to put your Adsense code on 2 sites that are exactly the same: no it's not alllowed.

Someone then asked for documentation that showed this is not allowed by AdSense. In response, the following was offered:

Do not create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this come from the Google webmaster guidelines instead of from the AdSense terms/policies?

Is there anything in the AdSense terms/policies that prohibit essentially duplicate content?

If you think about it, if AdSense did have such a prohibition and enforced it, the number of pages with AdSense would be much smaller. For example, think of all the sites using the same articles - those shared legitimately and those that are stolen.

FarmBoy

[StuntasticAudi]

I have a site with same content. I have site.COM and site.NET...both are the same. Users when they go to site.COM they are either taken to site.COM/content or site.NET/content...both are on different servers and have their own bandwidth limits..this way i save on buying dedicated servers.

[humblebeginnings]

Interesting point Jomaxx. It looks like the Webmaster Guidelines are, in your point of view, more like advice, rather than rules?

I know, that's my own quote;-)

Jomaxx, sorry for this inaccurate way of summarizing your statement. I was in a hurry this morning to be in time for the traffic jam.

But to contemplate a bit more on this issue:

Do not create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

This indeed is a quote from the Program Policies.
Not from the Terms and Conditions. But according to Google, that doesn't make it less stringent. The Program Policies state:

Please read the policies carefully and assume that they all apply to you, unless the specific policy explicitly states otherwise.

In addition the Terms and Conditions state:

Participation in the Program is subject to Google prior approval and Your continued compliance with the Program Policies

and:

You shall not (...) act in any way that violates any Program Policies

To me this is evidence that our agreement with Google prohibits us from violating the Program Policies. So it is not allowed to put Adsense code on duplicate pages.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons for having duplicate content.

Legitimate according to what? Not according to Googles Terms and Conditions and Program Policies as far as I am concerned.

Google even allows AdSense to run on DMOZ and Wiki and public domain content clones.

How do you know Google allows it? The fact that it happens doesn't mean it is allowed. There are millions of pages with Adsense code and no content at all. It happens, but it is not allowed.

but I've never heard of anyone getting into trouble with the AdSense team for it.

That also is no evidence for the theory it is "allowed".
Maybe Google just hasn't started their offensive against duplicate pages yet?

Your thoughts please...

[jomaxx]

So your point is that Google doesn't enforce that interpretation, but that they could choose to someday? Okay, maybe.

I assume you're conceding that nobody ever has been or will be banned for exceeding the 100-links-per-page guideline? That seems to apply just as forcefully as the no-duplicate-content rule.

[humblebeginnings]

My point is that Google officially does not allow Adsense publishers to have duplicate pages because that is clearly stated in the Adsense Program Policies.

The fact that they do not ban (all) publishers who break this rule is another thing.

We all know that there are so many publishers who break all kinds of Adsense rules, yet, Google doesn't seem to hunt them down.

I think that Google uses its Terms of Service and Program Policies as a safety net that
a) prevents many publishers from practising that behavior
b) can be applied if certain kinds of behavior were actually to become a threat to their business model.

As long as behavior that has the potential of being a threat is practised on a small scale without endangering the system, Google will not actively enforce the rule that prohibits this behavior.

This is the case with pages with more than 100 links. The Internet is not flooded with links pages anymore as it was 10 years ago.
So Google doesn't care right now.

As soon as certain kinds of behavior (for example MFA's) get out of control, Google acts accordingly. Their way of dealing with it is not banning publishers, but but algo-policing the problem.

Perhaps the next threat to their system actually is duplicate pages or near-duplicate pages. There are loads of software solutions that promise you to make near-duplicates of rich content pages without the Google algo being able to detect it as a duplicate. Maybe this is the start of a new race for MFA-publishers to outsmart the system.
If that were to be the case, Google would indeed enfore the duplicate pages rule.