Mirror Sites And Search Optimization

[Monsoon]

Hi,

 

TCH is currently hosting my domain,

 

http://www.satellitefilms.tv.

 

I also have a number of other sites parked with TCH that point to this domain, including:

 

http://www.satellitefilms.net

http://www.satellitefilms.us

&

http://www.momentonearth.com

 

Right now they all have a PR of 0, except .net which has a PR of 6...

Also, when you search for my key phrases, 'A Moment on Earth' or 'Satellite Films,' the results are not consistent - sometimes you get .net and othertimes .tv

 

I have also heard that so-called 'Mirror Sites' are looked down upon by Search Engines... Should I just own those other sites, but not put them online in order to focus the attention on one site in particular or should that not matter?

 

If you were in my position, what would you do to get higher rankings and/or potentially have the SatelliteFilms.tv domain come up for 'Satellite Films' searches and the MomentOnEarth.com domain come up for 'A Moment on Earth' searches in case I choose to differentiate the sites later - or will that happen naturally from title changes?

 

Anyway, any thoughts or advice is always greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[TCH-Bruce]

The best thing for increasing your page rank is to have more sites linking to you.

[Monsoon]

That part I understand... I guess what I'm wondering is whether having too many URL's of essentially the same site, 'dilutes' the power of the links going to the site.

 

If some are linked to http://www.momentonearth.com and others are linked to http://www.satellitefilms.tv or .net or .us does it dilute their power because all of my inbound links are spread across many 'different' sites? Or do the Search Engines recognize that it's going to the same place, with consistent content?

 

Sorry this is a bit confusing to me. Any help would be appreciated. I guess what I'm trying to decide is whether I should take all of the other sites offline except one.

 

Thanks...

 

 

The best thing for increasing your page rank is to have more sites linking to you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[TCH-Bruce]

I am not a SEO expert so what ever I say could be wrong but I don't think it matters how many sites you have pointing to the same place. Wouldn't they all be treated as separate sites?

 

It's not like you are creating entrance pages that point to your site.

 

Let me explain myself for this thinking.

 

Say you have domaina.ext, domainb.ext and domainc.ext

 

When you enter the url for domainb.ext that is what the browser will display and not domaina.ext. Same for domainc.ext. That is as long as you are not doing something to make it display domaina.ext.

[Deverill]

If some are linked to http://www.momentonearth.com and others are linked to http://www.satellitefilms.tv or .net or .us does it dilute their power because all of my inbound links are spread across many 'different' sites?

 

It absolutely will. The thing to keep in mind in this case is that the search engines (SE) don't know they are all the same site. A SE will be running down the list and say, "Oh, there's a vote for TCHDomainA.com" and "Ah, here's a vote for TCHDomainB.com" and it the mind of the SE, each "site" has 1 vote where your competition may have 2 or 3 votes with only one domain name.

 

About the only way to get the links to count together is to permanently redirect one site to the other. If I have 2 "real" sites and put a permanent redirect on one of them then most SE's will "add" that site's rank to the other one and consider them as the same site from then on. The only way I know to do that, however, is to have a separate page from which you can do a redirect.

 

Here's a few things:

o Why do you have all those domains? Is it:

. To stop competition from getting good names?

. There used to be sites there and you just consolidated them?

. Some other reason?

 

If there's no compelling reason to do this then I'd say just pretend the others don't exist and focus on your main (real) one in the search engine world.

 

Remember also that Google's PR is nearly meaningless nowdays. Some big sites even have zero recently because of changes and most experts in SEO don't believe that Google's reported PR (for instance, in the tool bar) is an indication of anything useful. Read another article about "How important is PR?"

 

What counts, and the only things that count, are:

1. Can people find your site when they are looking for product or service X?

2. Will they choose you when they get to your site?

 

Number 1 is purely a search engine (and other advertising) thing. Number 2 is a measure of how good your site is... does it sell the product and is it easy for them to buy.

 

Also remember that it seems like it takes about a year for a new site to show up in Google for the first time. They have a "waiting period" that is *bad*.

 

Don't forget that Google is just A "big dog" and not the only game in town.

[TCH-Bruce]

There you go, told you I didn't know.