%20 URL accessible, does this matter?

[DROIDSTERS]

I have a rewrite on the CMS I work on. What happens here is that if someone creates a page on the website and uses spaces as the name then the CMS automatically replaces the spaces with -'s. I noticed this morning that the %20 URLs are accessible but not indexed at all. Only the - URLs are indexed. could this cause duplicate content or penalties? I know best practice is to have only ONE URL for a page but somehow the developer can't redirect the %20 URLs to the - URLs.

Opinions?

[LynnPatchett]

Hi,

That sounds like an issue with the cms itself, it is creating the dashed urls but also keeps a record of the original urls and delivers them if requested. If the urls with blanks in them are not being linked to internally and not being linked to by external sites then really you have no problem, only you are looking at the spaced urls nobody else (including the search engines) know they exist, so no issues with duplicate content.