50+ duplicate content pages - Do we remove them all or 301?

[Motava]

We are working on a site that has 50+ pages that all have duplicate content (1 for each state, pretty much).

Should we 301 all 50 of the URLs to one URL or should we just completely get rid of all the pages?

Are there any steps to take when completely removing pages completely? (submit sitemap to google webmaster tools, etc)

thanks!

[EGOL]

We are working on a site that has 50+ pages that all have duplicate content (1 for each state, pretty much).

There are a lot of sites that make a lot of money by having one page for each state (or county or country or city or whatever).  Although it is labor intensive to develop content for fifty different pages it can be done eloquently.

There are also a lot of successful sites that get away with fifty pages of cookie cutter content (Replace Alabama with Alaska, etc. on every page).

I would see what kind of traffic the site is currently getting on those pages, how many sales they are making, what visitors are doing on them, do they have any links?

These pages could be highly successful and if that is the case, II would work to improve them instead of removing them.... and if they have an inbound links at present I might improve them on the same URL rather than removing them to build on new URLs.

[Motava]

They have gotten some OK traffic. They're being clicked, but it's the exact same on each page.

There are no links coming in to any of them, however. The URLs themselves across the site are pretty weird, so I will be doing a complete restructuring of those as well.

Based on the traffic they've gotten, I agree, it would be good to do unique content for each state, but this obviously wouldn't be able to get completed for quite some time.

With all that in mind, what should we do?

[EGOL]

I would keep them on the same URLs and explain the dupe content risk to client.  Then client can decide to upgrade them himself, have you source new content or allow them to run "as is".

I know of a lot of sites that have pages like this that are working well and make nice money.