Would this be considered duplicate content?

I am so stupid

[flobaby]

I redirected a couple ghost URLs (pages gone for over a year but still spidered by Ink) to my index page. In searches, Ink lists those URLs with the title and description from my index, though the actual index page is completely MIA.

I just realized that since it's listing those URLs with the index content, Ink might be treating them as multiple copies of my index, which could have created a penalty for duplicate content. Does this sound possible?

[panic]

I just realized that since it's listing those URLs with the index content, Ink might be treating them as multiple copies of my index, which could have created a penalty for duplicate content. Does this sound possible?

Sounds very possible. The purpose of the multiple content editorial action is to not only stop people from stealing content off of external sites, but to stop people from using the same content and optimizing it differently on multiple pages.

[flobaby]

Thanks Panic. If this is true, then that might be the reason a lot of other people's pages are MIA. We could all be the victim of innocent redirects that Ink misinterprets as duplication. Wouldn't be a problem if Ink didn't keep old urls in their database indefinitely. Poop.

[panic]

We could all be the victim of innocent redirects that Ink misinterprets as duplication. Wouldn't be a problem if Ink didn't keep old urls in their database indefinitely.

Did you use 301 redirects?

[flobaby]

Yep, I sure did.

[panic]

Yep, I sure did.

Did you use a meta refresh, or robots.txt?

[flobaby]

robots.txt
And it validates correctly.