Duplicate page content reports duplicates, but pages don't show duplication

[noonzie]

My duplicate page reports shows 376 pages with duplicate content.  After reviewing the pages the report claims have duplicate content, i can't find duplications.  could this be an error, or is there some source code that doesn't display that could be causing this issue?

[nux]

Based on what I understand, duplicate pages can be pages with nearly identical content.

For example, I run some sites with profiles for users. If someone only fills in the username and no other personal details, two different users will be reported as duplicate content.  The whole page is the same except for one word.

Keep this in mind when evaluating the reported URLs of duplicate content.

[division1]

You can look into Canonical URL's. As per our experience it does help a lot.

[noonzie]

based on the pages i review that content that was seen on the pages was for the most part 100% unique.

[noonzie]

After researching a little more. I have found that there is duplicate content.  there is some informational content that is controlled by a third party site.  It is good useful information, but i have found it in multiple place when searching the content.

how much does this type of information hurt our site ranking?  If it didn't exist on our site, would that make any difference?