Is it a good idea to use the rel canonical tag to refer to the original source?

[Searchresult]

Sometimes we place our blog post also on a external site. In this case this post is duplicated. Via the post we link to the original source but is it also possible to use the rel canonical tag on the external site?

For example:

• The original blogpost is published on http://www.original.com/post
• The same blogpost is published on http:///www.duplicate.com/post.

In this case is it wise to put a rel canonical on http://www.duplicate.com/post like this:

?

What do you think?

Thanks for help!

Robert

[Searchresult]

Thank you, I'll read the article.

[Searchresult]

Thank you!

[SoftzSolutions]

Yes it is perfectly legitimate. You check this blogpost for verification -

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html

[TomRayner]

If it really is word for word, then putting a canonical in place is a wise move.  It should be remembered that the canonical is only an instruction for Google, not a directive, and so it isn't 100% Panda Proof (although I would say it's pretty high)

I'm not completely sure why you would want to copy the content completely to another site, as you won't be able to rank that webpage with the duplicate content.  If it's providing users with useful information and you don't have the time/resource to rewrite it, then that would make sense to me.