Dealing With Duplicates on Tube Sites...
 

It seems that a lot of the same content gets uploaded on an almost daily basis resulting in a lot of duplicate descriptions, titles and videos. I'm pretty sure this has a negative effect on search rankings, and it also eats up HD space. I'm wondering what the best way is to deal with duplicate content on a tube site? Would it be a good idea to sort through the duplicates and pick one as the main link and then just 301 redirect the other duplicate links to the one main link? Or is there a better way?

Anyone?

So far 50 views and not one response... Surely somebody has an answer.

Isn't whatever script you're using smart enough to spot duplicate content? If not you should either switch scripts or add the functions you need if the software you use is custom.

You mean on the upload? No it doesn't do that although I'll be adding preventative measures, but I want to know what the best practices are for existing duplicate content in terms of SEO. Should I just delete or redirect?

301 is probably the best way to handle it but it's just a tube site so if it's easier to just 404 it back to the front page then I would do that.

i have the same issue with my new site and hoping to read more replies. :Oh crap

Good question - you want to avoid 404 errors for search engine problems. I'd 301 it and thats it. The best policy with tube content is to filter things yourself - make sure its from a trusted legal source. Then your really just avoiding the double-work of autoposters etc.

Also if you submit a RSS feed to Google as a sitemap, it'll let you know in Webmaster Tools about duplicates

:2 cents:

If 301ing a bunch of dupes will be a hassle then 404 is still better than leaving up a bunch of duplicate pages. Tube sites, TGPs and MGPs are notorious for having very low quality traffic so you're not going to hurt much by 404ing whatever you remove.