Avoid Duplicate Content In Your Website/Blog

You have duplicate content when:

• You have more than one version of any page
• You reference any page with more than one URL
• Someone plagiarizes your content
• You syndicate content

And it’s a problem for two reasons:

1. Duplicate content filter - Let’s say there are two pages of identical content out there on the Web. Google doesn’t want to list both in the SERPs, because it’s after variety for searchers. The duplicate content filter identifies the pages, then Google applies intelligence to decide which is the original. It then lists only that one in the SERPs. The other one misses out. Problem is, Google may choose the wrong version to display in the SERPs. There’s no such thing as a duplicate content penalty.
2. PageRank dilution – Some webmasters will link to one page/URL and some will link to another, so your PageRank is spread across multiple pages, instead of being focused on one. Note, however, that Google claims that they handle this pretty well, by consolidating the PageRank of all the links.