Hehe, hey now, not all us developers are lazy

You know your system better than any of us do.  My 1. and 2. are just the best-case order in which to get things done.  Do what works for you and your site.

Yes to your first questions.  Here's the process for each (as I see it):

1. Fix/remove the ability for system to generate ?print URL's and implement canonical tags; open beer and wait 'til search engines sort things out.  Nothing more you can do here.

2. No fix to system so we still have ?print URL's.  In this case, setup the 301's in your .htaccess file; however, as long as the system is still generating these ?print URLs, you will have to keep the redirects in the .htaccess in tact, permanently.

Untested:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^([^/]*).html?print$ /$1.html [L,NC,R=301]

Just to clarify.  If there is in fact no difference between the pages (as you originally stated), then please just use the canonical tag.  As much as you might want to setup 301 redirects, they would not be the way to go in this case.  Trust me.

Otherwise, here is what I would do, honestly: find out why the ?print is causing information to be displayed improperly in some cases.  If it's accessing the same db tables using the same queries, then that shouldn't be happening.  I'd fix that, and implement the canonical tags, and wait it out.  That would be the easiest approach and most beneficial with the least impact to your site and any rankings.

If this is something your not capable of fixing (not sure if you're proficient with coding, etc), then you can setup 301's as a 'hack', but they should not be left in permanently as the process in which I stated just above is the best way to resolve the issue.

In order to assist you with any .htaccess markup, you'll need to provide some examples of your URL's, and whether they have any common identifiers.

OK - I was basing my answers on what you said, "the only difference between the original and the duplictes is the "?print" at the end of each URL"

If there is in fact different content on each page, and the ?print page is the one with the errors, then you should remove the ability for ?print pages to even be generated in the first place instead of having them constantly redirecting user/bots.  Forever 301 re-directions can hurt you down the road.

Once you've removed the ability for users/bots to find and access the ?print pages, then setup the 301's and insert the canonical tags.

Ya, this is what I was talking about.  Just a standard canonical html tag inserted into the framework.

That will clear everything up for you (might take a wee bit, but Google will recognize it right away).

No need for .htaccess whatsoever since the content is identical.  If the content were different, ie. the ?print page showed a completely different style format, then sure, setup some 301's to get the user's to the right page.  But not needed for your situation.

Always optimize for the user, not for the bots.

What I mean by that is, create titles that are typically phrases that make sense to people as they'll be more willing to click on that result within the SERP's.

The title tag is simply just a one-liner of what the page is about, just in a catchy way.  If it looks/sounds robotic, people will notice, and in turn, crawlers will notice.

To fully answer your question: unique is always better.  Creating custom title tags whenever possible, outside of the template, robotic style, will warrant you better results.

Canonical will suffice as it is basically a 301 anyways.  Cleaner too as there is no actual redirect for the user, or bot, to endure.

You can also set it up in Google Webmaster Tools under 'Site Configuration > URL Parameters' to ignore that parameter; however, using the canonical tag will more than suffice in this case.

You must look at ranking in the SERP's as a popularity contest, so-to-speak.  Backlinks by way of websites and social mediums are votes and can/will determine your placement in the search results.

Your chosen keywords/phrases might be extremely competitive, as well.  When starting out with a site, it's best to select some niche, lower volume keywords, which are often more long-tail than the aggresive, highly-competitive 1-3 word keyphrases.  Trust me, going for the gusto right off the bat will only leave you more and more frustrated as the years go on.  You can always adjust your keywords down the road once you've established a good roll of backlinks and visitors to continue being more competitive.

And as I mentioned in an earlier post today, don't just focus on Google.  There are other search engines out there as well, and you'd be making a large mistake in focusing solely on Google for SERP's as Bing/Yahoo holds a decent market share, too.

Keep trucking.  SEO is an art-form.  It's not something just anybody can do on a whim and expect to get to #1 overnight.  It might be wise to invest in an SEO team to help get you pointed in the right direction.

• Marc