Content Do's and Dont's?

[David M. Graham]

Terri,

I expect that you will not find specific guidelines on this from each of the search services. Primarily because they like to keep search spammers guessing.

But - the big concern appears to be duplication of the entire contents of a page multiple times within a single site for the sole purpose of gaining high rankings for specific search terms with minimal effort. 

I think perhaps your specific concern is your waterproof labels.  The best approach I can think of there is to make sure you use the term waterproof in the duplicate content, and then vary one or two descriptive terms between the two pages where ever it is possible to do so.  A thesaurus may well be helpful there.

Some places, you can't avoid substantial content duplication.   This is particularly true of ecommerce sites where a wide offering of products that are very similar in nature are offered.  If you can't avoid this entirely in your products, be sure to do so in articles and supporting information pages.

David

[terierni]

Recently I was looking around online to learn more about 'content' do's and don't on a website. I came across something in Google that I do not understand and I wonder if someone could clarify this statement. This comes from an article, Google's Advice for Your Website: Content

One recommendation said:

• Update your content often. It's important both to add new pages and update existing pages. If you can't afford original content, use free-reprint content.
  
  
• Distribute your content to other websites on a free-reprint basis. This will help your website get links in exchange for the right to publish the content. It will also help spread your message and enhance your visibility. Fears of a ‘duplicate content penalty’ for free-reprint content (as opposed to duplication of content within a single website) are unjustified.
  

The part I need help with is: duplication of content within a single website

Please, I need clarity on this... I need to know where the line is here - what is OK and what is NOT OK?

And what is this 'penalty'? Is there any information out there that explains the SE rules and regulations ...so to speak?

Thank you!