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Thanks. Yes - I've had a look at OSE and I do agree it's useful. I also look at the inbound anchor text - I've seen some shocking examples!!! Appreciate the reply! Anyone else?

Thank you Dana! It's something we have been considering. Do you feel that Panda specifically would be penalising for the titles and titles? Or another part of Google? Is it your view that the issue is that we have boilerplate titles, or too many very similar skills listed? Or both?

I think it can get pretty complicated, but a couple of observations: (1) In my experience, NOINDEX does work - indexation is what Google cares about primarily. Eventually, you do need to trim the crawl paths, XML sitemaps, etc., but often it's best to wait until the content is de-indexed. (2) From an SEO perspective (temporarily ignoring Panda), a 301 consolidates link juice - so, if a page has incoming links or traffic, that's generally the best way to go. If the page really has no value at all for search, either a 404 or NOINDEX should be ok (strictly from an SEO perspective). If the page is part of a path, then NOINDEX,FOLLOW could preserve the flow of link juice, whereas a 404 might cut it off (not to that page, but to the rest of the site and deeper pages). (3) From a user perspective, 301, 404, and NOINDEX are very different. A 301 is a good alternative to pass someone to a more relevant or more current page (and replace an expired one), for example. If the page really has no value at all, then I think a 404 is better than NOINDEX, just in principle. A NOINDEX leaves the page lingering around, and sometimes it's better to trim your content completely. So, the trick is balancing (2) and (3), and that's often not a one-sized fits all solution. In other words, some groups of pages may have different needs than others.