Duplicate content filter - dumps whole site or just pages?

[Whitey]

Does a whole site gets dumped or just the duplicate pages.

I'm seeing that our site rose strongly over 5 days and then has started to fall away, as though after the pages came up in the search, G is going through them and filtering them out. The pages that are most "similar" are at the 4th and 5th level, which started to kick in 5 days ago before the drop of 2 days ago.

This is part of the problem discussed over here: Duplicate Content on Localised Search [webmasterworld.com]about multiple TLD's Duplicate Content on Localised Search, but likely applies to other forms of content related duplicate content.

I want to put redirects in place to counteract this, but wondering if G axes a whole site or just the duplicate pages. Looks like a whole site to me, but I'd be interested to hear from other's experiences.

[g1smd]

Just filters individual pages, so for a site with a www and non-www pages showing, some get listed as www and some get listed as non-www, but most show as Supplemental whatever happens.

Same sort of thing if both .com and .co.uk are showing the same content. The "Strength" of all pages is reduced.

[Whitey]

The "Strength" of all pages is reduced.

So if, for example, half a site is duplicate content, then the strength of the remaining half could be so weak, that it drops off of the rankings?

[tedster]

Filters do not place penalties - so it's unlikely that the "good" pages will be negatively affected, as I see it. There do seem to be parts of the algo that measure sitewide factors, but in that area there would also be a chance that the good pages will help out the weaker pages over time.

[g1smd]

>> so it's unlikely that the "good" pages will be negatively affected <<

I believe that Pagerank distribution is affected within a site; and I see that could have a knock-on effect in several ways... and again, talk about PR stuff links in with some of what Matt Cutts has mentioned in relation to Supplemental Results in more recent times.

[edited by: g1smd at 6:42 pm (utc) on May 25, 2007]

[allanp73]

I'm not sure if this is true...Duplicate content can be very dangerous to the health of a web site. Though duplicate may not receive a direct penalty, they can receive zero PR therefore act as a source for PR drain. As well dup pages eventually get tagged as supplemental results. Supplemental results are the black holes of the index from which it is very difficult to return.