Google, Databases and mirror sites

[SlyOldDog]

We have a database residing on a server hosting our main URL. The main URL does not use the database. The reason for hosting the database there is that it's a rock solid ISP and we've already paid for the super duper hosting plan.

We want to access this database from another site. No problem there. The problem is that Google may interpret the second site as a mirror site, because it's using a database hosted somewhere else.

Anyone have any experience of being PR zeroed for using a remote database (for example travelnow).

Experiences would be much appreciated.

[Terry_Plank]

[searchengineworld.com...] this definition fits my definition too so that what you describe sounds like the content is in the database on the other domain and not duplicated on the original domain. I don't see how it would be considered a mirror site.

We have linked to another of our domains consistently to take visitors to articles that we keep on one domain but not on the another. Sending them there for the content has never been a problem with our ranking where we are number 1 at Google for many keyword phrases and have a PR of 6/10.

[Marcia]

I've got a similar question about more than one site - related but different product lines - utilizing the same shopping cart residing on one of them. They wouldn't be mirror sites, but the issue is whether it could end up being a cross-linking situation.

[SlyOldDog]

I'm not worried if a human looks at it. What I'm worried about is if Google has a spam filter which would pick up one site using another site's database (even though the first site is not using the database at all, but the spam filter would not check for that).

I don't think that anyone who does not work at Google could answer this one (hint). It's a simple yes or no answer.

[ggrot]

Sly, it would depend on how you are using the database. I mean, if it is just a table that has a list of states for use in a drop down box somewhere on the site, nobody cares. Google can't see that 2 sites are using the same database - they can only see the output of your scripts that access the database. If the output is significantly different, its fine. Otherwise it isn't.

Also, you could simply block google from crawling this portion of the second site if you wanted to with robots.txt and meta tags (if robots still follow meta).