Yesterday at Search Engine Land I covered a video answer from Google's Matt Cutts on the topic of duplicate content.
In short, should you worry about having duplicate content on your site or not. The short answer, is no. Google's Matt Cutts said that if you have content that is duplicative in your site, don't worry about it. He said, "I wouldn't stress about this unless the content that you have duplicated is spammy or keyword stuffing."
He may have been specifically talking about boiler plate content like privacy policies and such. But he does expand his answer to tell you that the only real case you should worry about is when your using duplicate content in a spammy way.
Truth is, SEOs and webmasters don't believe him. Also, Google has been telling webmasters not to worry about duplicate content for years. But even their own advice has been shown to be contradictory.
Here is the video answer from Matt Cutts:
The feedback on Google+ and Search Engine Land is not too positive. Here are some comments:
All this is to confuse people and make them think twice. They just want to minimize all the seo.
Never thought I'd hear him say that.
A misleading statement, why not to give full details, how to use duplicate content? Duplicate contents are allowed but what are necessary terms ?
Of course, answering a question on duplicate content in 2-3 minutes is not always the best idea.
Forum discussion at Google+ and Search Engine Land.
