Like the reflection of an image projected by a mirror, mirror sites are an exact reproduction of a website. Widely used in the computer industry, this concept has been gradually adapted to specific site formats. This is the case of bookmakers who have more and more so-called mirror sites.
In computer science, the term mirror refers to a complete cloning of a data base, i.e. a database. Inductively, then, a mirror site is a web platform whose design, layout and content (textual and visual) are the exact and complete copy of a third-party website.
The only difference recorded is in the URL. This is because mirror sites share specialized URLs not only in form, but also in substance. Apart from that, it's important to remember that mirror interfaces are always hosted on servers that are completely opposite to the main sites.
The ingenious concept of the mirror site involves several benefits.
The mirror site is essentially used to balance the loads of the original site in terms of downloads. Indeed, many platforms express a need for bandwidth due to the high volume information they make available to users. This is for example the case of a bookmaker who needs to cover :
It is clear that the use of a mirror site allows sports betting service promoters to provide millions of users with both fast and instant access.
This utility is closely related to the previous one. One of the important purposes of the mirror site is to promote good availability of products or provision of a service throughout the world. In the face of a server problem encountered by the main site's server, the mirror interface successfully conducts the operation of the general service.
It should also be remembered that its server works by redundancy and is located in different geographical areas. This is therefore a crucial advantage in providing a better customer experience to visitors.
The concept of the mirror site is extremely useful in making the distribution of information subject to cyber censorship sustainable. This is the example of the bookmaker 20bet, which is banned in some European countries. However, there are alternatives to this betting provider. For players, there is no need to use a VPN, as 20bet has a well-stocked list of mirror sites.
The operation of a mirror site relies on three different elements.
The first comes down to the essential infrastructure of the original site. Obviously, the mirror site operates through a structure that incorporates lightweight and capacity features in order to support large bandwidth rates.
In addition, there are replication tools that reference the copy-and-paste principle. This includes tools such as incremental backup and website vacuum. Finally, the functioning of the mirror site relies on its domain name. Typically, this is www, the reference URL for these web spaces.