The SEO industry, for years, has been plagued by lack of consistency when it comes to information; information pertaining to terms and definitions and ‘duplicate content penalty’ is no exception. The mystery surrounding duplicate content penalty has been the ‘bone of contention’ ever since it the term surfaced in the online arena. If it exists, what would actually qualify to be deemed as duplicate content and how the penalty works, are questions that have largely gone unanswered or shrouded with ambiguity.

The concept, “search engine penalty for duplicate content”, is largely unfounded. It does not exist (yes you heard me right), at least not in the way many people perceive it today. Search engine penalty is by and large reserved for acts of sabotage; activities purposely performed to trick search engines in one way or the other. However it is not an indication that search engines like duplicate content and will not take punitive actions to curb it. Plagiarism is taken seriously in the real world and since search engines try to emulate human behavior, there is no reason why it will not dislike plagiarized work. Search engines strive to index and show to their users, as much unique content as possible and duplicate content acts a barrier to this aspiration. Search engine results showing the same basic information page after page, will not only prompt the user to look somewhere else but would also mean that search engines have failed to accomplish its job. Fresh and unique content is what we all want………….

Source: articlealley.com/article_85136_3.html