In common language the mirror is the reflection of the original and a similar concept is applied to online existence when a web page design or a complete website is replicated as it is and stored at another destination. You will find that a particular web design will be present for different web addresses, these can well be mirror sites of one common main site. This is an important consideration in website development and marketing.
The mirrors these days are not only about the web site design but also concentrated on certain databases where in one site maintain the original database and the others just mirror that. In this way all sites can get access to the main site database without having to create one for each one of them.
The web page design also plays a very important role in mirror sites as visitors are not always aware that the site will enable download or any such activity though another site and therefore the web page design should be convincing and enthralling.
Mirrors are generally used in order to maximize the reach of the resource so that a large number of people can get access to a certain piece of information without actually coming to the parent site. These are also used for effective online internet marketing campaigns these days where mirrors with different web page design and web addresses promote the same product or services, thus making the customer believe that the product or service being promoted is an unanimous choice and not a partial or biased decision.
With so much information available these days, mirrors are great ways to reduce the load on web hosting servers by collecting the required information from a similar site however this has a very slim chance to happen between major competitors in any area of work. However the mirror technology on the web has helped many to simplify a lot of things that would otherwise be quite complicated.