Duplicate Content Penalized?

[webcreations]

Fix duplicate content on a website with these techniques.
(1)  Using canonicalization tags in the website's Meta data can enable the search engines know what urls to index or give authority. The advantage of the canonicalization is that its quite eay to implement and there are several ways to implement on different CMS platforms whether its wordpress, Joomla or CMS made simple.
(2) Using the Google Webmaster tools to set the preferred version of the website is another way to solve this problem.
(3) Setting the preferred version of the website's domain is the most effective way to deal with duplicate content on the website. This means that you expressly tell the search engines which domain; the www or non-www version of the website you prefer indexing.

[frankdevine]

Duplicate content is content that appears on the Internet in more than one place (URL). This is a problem because when there are more than one piece of identical content on the Internet, it is difficult for search engines to decide which version is more relevant to a given search query. To provide the best search experience, search engines will rarely show multiple, duplicate pieces of content and thus, are forced to choose which version is most likely to be the original (or best).

Three of the biggest issues with duplicate content include:

Search engines don't know which version(s) to include/exclude from their indices
Search engines don't know whether to direct the link metrics (trust, authority, anchor text, link juice, etc.) to one page, or keep it separated between multiple versions
Search engines don't know which version(s) to rank for query results

[Aitugan]

Google's vague stance on penalties creates a breeding ground for copycats, leaving genuine creators in the lurch. Sure, they have algorithms to detect original content, but when two sites are on par, the original can easily get buried. This isn't just a minor oversight, it's a systemic flaw that undermines the very fabric of the web.
Why should those who invest time and energy into creating quality content suffer because Google can't differentiate between the two?