Does Google Penalize You For Having Duplicate Content?

Is duplicate content penalty real or is it just a myth? I am sure you have heard of the idea that Google will penalize you for having duplicate content. Perhaps you are a blogger or a webmaster, who’s worrying all the time if he or she is going to be penalized by Google for having some duplicate content, and you want to find out, once and for all, the truth about duplicate content. I have seen this question pop up in many places, from forums, blogs to chat rooms and social networking sites. So, do you think there is such a thing as duplicate content penalty?… Well, i did a little research(cant really call it research, lol) to find out the truth.

To find out if duplicate content penalty really existed or not, i went straight to the source- google, Googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com to be exact. By the way, i don’t understand why more people don’t use Google’s official blog to get their google related answers, instead of looking for it everywhere else and getting hundreds of different answers that just ads to the confusion?…

Anyway, here is what google has to say about the duplicate content penalty subject:

There’s no such thing as a “duplicate content penalty.” At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that…. Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results…

So, its best not to have the same identical content on two different pages of the same site (why would you want to have the same content on two different pages of your blog anyway?). But even then you are not penalized, although it may affect the performance of your blog. Here is what Google says about that: 

…about things like having multiple URLs on the same domain that point to the same content. Like www.example.com/skates.asp?color=black&brand=riedell and www.example.com/skates.asp?brand=riedell&color=black. Having this type of duplicate content on your site can potentially affect your site’s performance, but it doesn’t cause penalties…

So, no there is no penalty for having duplicate content. Simple as that! But i am sure as long as google and internet exist, this duplicate content penalty myth will exist too. But, at least now you know that its all just a myth, and you don’t have to waste time and energy worrying about that. In a nut shell: Although duplicate content can hurt your blog or website’s performance, google will not penalize you for having duplicate content unless your duplicating deliberately.