Which would help my sites rank better?

[worde]

I'm very new to all these. Would maintaining two sites (one a mirror) or a single site with an additional domain name linked/pointed to the same, put my site on a better ranking with SE?

Any tips? Thank you.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

You should focus all your work on one domain for now. It's much better to have one strong domain than two weak ones.

[Robert_Charlton]

I'm very new to all these. Would maintaining two sites (one a mirror) or a single site with an additional domain name linked/pointed to the same, put my site on a better ranking with SE?

Any tips? Thank you.

worde - As I understand your question, you're thinking that a mirror domain (ie, displaying the same content under a second domain) might help you. If anything, it will hurt.

It will be seen as duplicate content, something that none of the engines likes. Google generally handles dupe content by displaying only the dupe with the highest PageRank and dropping the rest. Unfortunately, you have no control over which ones are dropped. Inbound links to the dropped domains will be wasted.

Best get all your links going to just one domain, the one you want to promote.

Additional domains might help for type-in traffic or misspellings if they are properly redirected and don't appear as mirrors. They can have their own problems though... and I strongly recommend you avoid them until you know what you're doing.

Also, don't try to use additional domains for link boosts or to gain additional positions in the serps. Google is smarter about this than you are.

[sugarrae]

Google generally handles dupe content by displaying only the dupe with the highest PageRank and dropping the rest.

Until a few months ago, I may have agreed with that, but as of late, no. Many pages with higher PR are being considered the dups these days. Even when they truly are the originals.

As for the original question, I agree with Robert - you'll get hit for dup and the best way to work on your rankings in the search engines are to build up inbound links to your site.

[arsimosaic]

I'm very new to all these. Would maintaining two sites (one a mirror) or a single site with an additional domain name linked/pointed to the same, put my site on a better ranking with SE?

Any tips? Thank you.

Hi!
I think concentrate on one Domain name. :)

[jewboy]

I agree, 1 domain is the best approach.

[webslinger422]

1 domain. Definitely.

[ohcho]

Having two domain, search results may include entries from both and may ended up spliting visitors into two. In the short term, you may have a slightly more combined visitors. But in the long term, you may lose higher ranking.

[4bidden]

I have the same type of question. Our site, domain name "a" has never ranked well (created before I got here) but has limited inbound links. Domain "b" is new, new design with lots of optimization. We switched the DNS for domain "a" to match domain "b" so now both point to B. When searching in google, the descriptions and page titles are all new and correct, but the old domain name is showing as the address in most results. Is this a problem?

[ohcho]

I have the same type of question. Our site, domain name "a" has never ranked well (created before I got here) but has limited inbound links. Domain "b" is new, new design with lots of optimization. We switched the DNS for domain "a" to match domain "b" so now both point to B. When searching in google, the descriptions and page titles are all new and correct, but the old domain name is showing as the address in most results. Is this a problem?

A friend of mine has exactly the same problem. But his option is more limited since his "a" is with web-host subdirectory! His "b" has nothing in Google now. The main keyword he depends on ranked number one or two on Google. He wished to move his host to another to get better web-stats services. But there seems no way to solve this problem.