Duplicate content... images, templates, boilerplate?

[smithaa02]

I've read some articles that say not only is duplicate written content a problem, but duplicate images as well.

Does anybody know if this is true? Even if the filename is changed? Even if the image is cropped/resized?

Should I be very careful about posting images my clients provide as is on my site?

Then I was reading up on google official blurb about duplicate content at:

[support.google.com...]

And they say:

"For instance, instead of including lengthy copyright text on the bottom of every page, include a very brief summary and then link to a page with more details."

Translated into english...does this mean smaller boiler-plates/templates are better as far verbiage?

Google brags they are very good at splitting apart the template from the page content...what to them constitutes a good template? Minimal and efficient? Less links? Less images? Not too top heavy?

[tedster]

Sorry it's been so long with no reply. My take on this (and my experience) is that Google does not want to see large amounts of text on many pages that is always the same. This makes the unique factors of the page hard to sort out.

The more you can focus on getting the unique content to "dominate" the source code, the easier you make Google's job. (I've never heard of any issue with duplicate images, by the way.)