willybfriendly - 2:45 am on Sep 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

How different does a site have to be so that its not considered duplicate?

Wish I knew...

Easy enough to set a filter that checks the total size of a page as a first step towards identifying duplicate content. A checksum routine would add some robustness to a quick check like this. (I have no doubt that Google is much more sophisticated.)

I do have a number of dynamic pages that vary primarily by the geographic location named. In order to avoid the above easy checks I have made sure to include the geographic location numerous times in the pages. This strategy has given me dozens of top ten (many #1) SERPS on two and three word search terms in my little niche.

WBF