Is there any benefit in on-site duplicate content?

[BradBorst]

I have about 50 internal pages on my site that I want to add a "Do it yourself tutorial" to in an effort to build the quality of the pages.  Is this going to de-value the content if I put it on all 50 pages?  It's difficult to write similar content 50 different ways.

[ThomasHgenhaven]

As long as there is plenty of unique content on each page, adding some redundant content is not a problem. Especially not if it will improve the experience for the users, thereby improving click behavior.

[MarieHaynes]

I have some information on my site that is seen on thousands of my site pages.  For example, I have a sidebar that lists my most popular articles.  Or, I have a snippet of text that says what the website is about.  I also have a small blurb about me on every page.

I would say that as long as the majority of text on the page is not duplicate you are ok.

[SteveOllington]

Some content (such as sidebars, menus, footers, etc...) will be discounted from being seen as dupe content from the block level analysis that's done by the search engines. So that stuff is fine, but if pages are too similar, without a decent amount of distinguishing content, then no that's bad. Make sure the title tags aren't the same in any case.

[modparent]

Steve, if you have products with multiple color variations and each color variation has it's own page with a unique title, but duplicate product information is that bad as well?

[SteveOllington]

From my understanding, it would depend entirely on the ratio of unique to duplicate content... but it's a common problem if you mean what I think you do. Affiliate sites for example, ones that use data given to them by manufacturers or suppliers they're affiliates for. Some use the same product descriptions without adding enough of their own unique stuff to break it up and separate their pages from the other affiliates using the same content.

The more unique, the better. Personally I would try to make each set of product information as distinctive from the others as possible anyway... it can do nothing except help

[BradBorst]

Great information.  My understanding was always the same as Steve's .....it depends on the ratio of unique vs. duplicate content.  A while back, I had read that this ratio was something like 80/20 (duplicate not to exceed 20%).  However, I think I will make each piece unique for best results.