Should we deindex duplicate pages?

[UWPCE]

I work on an education website. We offer programs that are offered up to 6 times per year. At the moment, we have a webpage for each instance of the program, but that's causing duplicate content issues. We're reworking the pages so the majority of the content will be on one page, but we'll still have to keep the application details as separate pages. 90% of the time, application details are going to be nearly identical, so I'm worried that these pages will still be seen as duplicate content.

My question is, should we deindex these pages? We don't particularly want people landing on our application page without seeing the other details of the program anyway. But, is there problem with deindexing such a large chunk of your site that I'm not thinking of?

Thanks, everyone!

[Jinx14678]

In my personal opinion I would not de-index them, use canonical

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

Here is a good take on it from a past Q & A Post

http://www.seomoz.org/q/best-way-to-handle-different-views-of-the-same-page

If you are not aware what a canonical is =

It is a tag you place in the head of your  page that tells search engines to look to another page, due to this page is a duplicate. You point to the page you want Search Engines to Index as the "master" page

Hope this helps

w00t!

[UWPCE]

I definitely looked in to using the canonical tag, but the question is, which version of the application page would they all point to? The application pages are going to be constantly rotated out, so there isn't one version that will always be live, and asking our web editors to change that canonical tag once or twice a year for 300+ programs wouldn't go over well.

[Jinx14678]

I am not sure there is an easy answer.

I would calculate your losses on the de-indexation

I would OSE the URL's in question (and verify through webmaster tools) See how many external sites point to them.

If you do not have many incoming links, then I am not sure de-indexation is so bad, comparatively to the man hours or work needed to keep this up now and in the future.

I think it would just become almost like a Profit and Loss (P&L) scenario.

Also if you are already seeing duplicate content penalty's, in the grand scheme it may help to get rid of those pages as post PANDA it MIGHT be dragging you down.

But really this is all speculation, as I am not fully "up to speed" with the exact situation, and the answer in my opinion would be based on alot of factors not just SEO.

Hope this helps!

Shane