what is duplicate content?

What makes 2 or more pages duplicate content?

A high degree of repeated text would be a simple definition. Another way to think of it that is particularly relevant to vBulletin is:

Many different URL addresses available for the same page.

We correct this issue. See more here:
Pin the Tail on the SEO Donkey (with Link Consensus)!

I might be in trouble then because i use the word servers alot since my site is about gaming :(

one word certainly won't do anything. There's no way for google to tell that.

the real issue is when you have 150+KB of code that is EXACTLY identical, but linked via showtopic.php?t=123 AND showtopic.php?p=456.

but vbseo fixes that

Thanks Briansol,

Originally Posted by Julio

I might be in trouble then because i use the word servers alot since my site is about gaming :(

When I mentioned a "high degree of repeated text" I meant the following:

If you stripped away all HTML code on a page, and left just the content words from the text (not images), this is the "page content".

If you can access multiple pages with identical page content (100%), or a very high degree such as (80%), the pages could be flagged as duplicates. This could result in penalties, or simply having the pages left out of the search index.

It's possible that a site filled with such pages could trip some kind of filter/triggering mechanism in the search engine crawling/indexing/ranking algorithms. You don't want this to happen!

However, as Brian stated, vBSEO pretty much eliminates the possibility of this occurring. See here:
Pin the Tail on the SEO Donkey (with Link Consensus)!

Thanks JOE,

I was confusing keyword spamming with duplicate content. :(

They are quite different. But keyword spamming is NOT a good idea either. You should definitely consider using our Relevant Replacements feature. This is a way to add extra keyword emphasis without overloading the page.

I haven't got to the relevant replacements yet. :(