If I put a piece of content on an external site can I syndicate to my site later using a rel=canonical link?

[RG_SEO]

Could someone help me with a 'what if ' scenario please?

What happens if I publish a piece of content on an external website, but then later decide to also put this content on my website. I want my website to rank first for this content, even though the original location for the content was the external website.

Would it be okay for me to put a rel=canonical tag on the external website's content pointing to the copy on my website? Or would this be seen as manipulative?

[EGOL]

Thanks for your thoughts on this, Dirk.

I really appreciate them.

E

[RG_SEO]

Thanks for answering my question Dirk! I found the deeper follow up conversation interesting as well.

[DirkC]

Hi Egol,

Interesting question, but difficult to answer. Could be a topic to ask on one of the Webmaster hangouts.

It all depends on how Google handles canonicals internally.

One possibility would be that Google considers the page from A that is syndicated on B not really as a page from B but a page from A. In that case, the links from that page would count as an internal link (A->A rather than as an external link B->A).

Another possibility would be that Google considers the fact that B is republishing the content from A as a kind of endorsement for A (in a non SEO world a site would only republish content from another site if the quality was really good). In that case, the links on the syndicated page would have value.

In both cases I would personally keep the links on the page. If you added them, it implies you think these links have some value for the visitor so taking them off wouldn't make much sense (unless your main goal was to add these links in order to optimise your internal link structure)

If you want to be on the safe side - if the links go to "commercial" pages, you could make them nofollow, if it's to other editorial content if would keep them as follow. I wouldn't omit the links - even when "nofollow" they could still generate traffic for your site.

Didn't found any "hard evidence" to support this, but we seem to have come in the stage where Google scared us so much about "bad links" that we start to question all type of incoming links. 
Sometimes you just have to trust your gut feeling - if the link looks "normal" in the context (and adds some value for the visitor) I would stick to a follow link.

Dirk

[EGOL]

Thank you, Dirk.

Here is a question, one step deeper.

Let's say that I have an article on Site A that I want to republish on Site B with the rel=canonical on Site B pointing to Site A.   The article on Site A has internal links to other pages on Site A.  What should I do with those links when the article is republished on Site B.

1)  Omit them

2)  Nofollow them

3)  Republish them allowing the links to be followed

I think that #3 is a bad idea.  I believe that those links could be considered spammy.

I like #2 best because the links will send traffic to additional relevant content.

I think that #1 is the safest.

Do you have any opinion on these options?

Thank you.

[DirkC]

No - it won't be seen as manipulative, in fact it is the recommended way to syndicate content. Check https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066:

"Addressing syndicated content. If you syndicate your content for publication on other domains, you want to consolidate page ranking to your preferred URL.

To address these issues, we recommend you define a canonical URL for content (or equivalent content) available through multiple URLs"