Glossary · Duplicate Content
Duplicate Content
Identical or near-identical content across multiple URLs, internally or across domains. Dilutes ranking signals and can be discounted by engines.
Duplicate content is rarely a "penalty" but is a discount. Engines try to pick one canonical version and ignore the rest. The fix is canonical tags, 301 redirects for old URLs, or removing duplicate pages entirely.
For local businesses, the most common duplicate-content issue is templated city pages where the body text is identical across cities with only the city name swapped.