Dupe sites affect rankings?

[fapsian]

I read somewhere that if you have duplicate site(s) it affects your rankings. How much of a duplicate is considered bad. Because on fwl - when you click on layouts, it takes you to freepagegraphics dot com which looks exactly like fwl.

[minnseoelite]

that has actually been debated recently as to "how much" it takes to hurt you....some will say one page others will say one paragraph some will claim they have duped whole sites with no ill effects

my advice is to avoid it all together

[geg2]

Here's Google's official word on duplicate content:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/12/deftly-dealing-with-duplicate-content.html

Here's an excellent and easy to understand article by Rand Fishkin, whose site ranks in the top ten of Google for seo
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-illustrated-guide-to-duplicate-content-in-the-search-engines