Dynamic Pages vs. Duplicate Content

Indexed pages count as a penalty?

[Murdoch]

Just a basic question...

If an SE indexes a number of dynamic pages that for the most part, contain the same data, does this count towards a penalty for duplicate content? If so, will putting a 301 redirect on these pages and/or links to the real page counteract this problem?

[whoisgregg]

The search engine doesn't care if the pages are dynamically generated, it's just going to do an analysis of the content (as far as duplicate filtering is concerned).

[Murdoch]

What happens if the dynamic pages only have a couple of different words of text (mainly affiliate values) and the rest of the page is completely the same?

[whoisgregg]

Why not put all of these identical pages in a directory blocked by robots.txt and put the real copy of it in a normally accessible location?

Then you don't even need to concern yourself with duplicate content worries.

[Murdoch]

Good idea, I think I'll do that. Our site ranks pretty well as it is but I do like to cover all my bases. You never know when the next update is coming to place emphasis on one loose end over another. Thanks for the idea...