I'm looking for some ideas for a mass de-index of some products which currently contain duplicated content as they are from a feed which supplies multiple sites with product info.

The URLs for the products do not contain a file that I can block engines from crawling eg: we have /the-big-blue-widget.aspx instead of /products/the-big-blue-widget.aspx

My solutions are;

1. Change and redirect with a 301 all the products to be removed to a new file path, and block that filepath and submit a deindex request on it.

2. Use a meta tag to noindex but follow, so the engine can still come in and look at the page. Once the content is fixed, remove the meta tag.

Any other ideas/ advice for me?

Thanks!

Canonical isn't going to work here - WMT can't even understand the pagination canonicals.

Final solution is decided; 410 old, reset URLs with noindex, get to work culling products and rewriting content.

It's a little bit like a farmer burning out a bramble filled field!