Receptional - 10:45 am on Dec 19, 2006 (gmt 0)

However, we prefer to focus on filtering rather than ranking adjustments ... so in the vast majority of cases, the worst thing that'll befall webmasters is to see the "less desired" version of a page shown in our index.

I have heard matt also say this before, and Paul Ahaare (spelling?) and I disagree. Or rather - I think you say this from your perspective - but that perspective is not the way we'd see it. I think that if you filter one Dupe URL and include the other, then the damage is significantly more than showing the wrong URL, as it will also mean that humans will be linking to both versions of the content and therefore will be splitting the content's reputation between the two URLs. Regardless of whether you filter one out or not, the point is that the content - duped or not - is not getting its "fair share" of reputation because there is no attempt to pass the dropped reputation to the url perceived as genuine. The biggest example of this is, of course, www vs no www urls, but these can easily be fixed by the webmaster. Presumably - through good design - most other problems can also be mitigated through 301s but don't tell me that

the worst thing that'll befall webmasters is to see the "less desired" version of a page shown in our index.

unless my assumption here is wrong. I don't think it is, do you?