Google and Duplicate Content

using duplicate content on same site with Google

[ccDan]

On my web site (under construction), I am going to have general interest content and regional content.

To separate content to make it easier for users to navigate, I'll be using URLs like this:

www.domain.dom/ [general interest content]

www.domain.dom/regional/cityname [regional content]

I will have URLs pointing in (301 redirects) from domains like www.cityname.dom that will go to the www.domain.dom/regional/cityname URL.

My question is, how does Google deal with duplicate content on the SAME web site?

For example, I may have an article of general interest that may be appropriate to link on the regional page as well. (This is on reason why I decided on using one domain rather than building a separate site for each cityname.dom.)

For ease of navigation, I'd like to keep users where they are so that they can continue reading regional information.

So, if I have two URLs, i.e.:

www.domain.dom/article.html?id=general_interest
www.domain.dom/regional/cityname/article.html?id=general_interest

Will Google penalize the site for having the duplicate content?

My other option is to open the general interest article in a new window when the user is reading it from the regional site. But, some pop-up blockers may prevent that.

Thanks,
Dan

[mcavic]

As far as I know, Google treats duplicate pages the same, regardless of the domain name. If the pages are exactly the same, it might just drop one of them. If they're just similar, then it'll only show one of the pages in any particular SERP.

You can use robots.txt or meta robots to keep Google from getting duplicates, but I don't think there will be an actual penalty.

Oh, you might want to change id= to something else, though - Google might confuse it with a session id and not index it.

[nakulgoyal]

if you are using 301, i think that does the game. It tells the BOT and you are not being indexed twice.