How will copy-pasting articles from my supplier affect my SEO?

Question

My supplier has interesting blog posts on his website, and I'm allowed to copy-paste these articles onto my own website. That's great! But I'm worried about my Google ranking being affected by duplicate content. I've heard about canonical links, but I'm not familiar with the concept.

Is it true that duplicate content is okay if I add the canonical tag to the blog title link? Or do I have to put it in the head section of the entire site? Or do I have to put the canonical tag just in the blog content? Or should I just stay away from using duplicate content?

I hope I don't confuse you guys, because I am!

Thanks for your help, and maybe some examples.

Answer 1

If the goal is to improve your own website's SEO, copying another website's content probably won't help even if you have permission from them to do so. There isn't any magic that a canonical tag (on your site at least) can do about that.

Google tries best to only index one copy of each article it finds on the internet, and it's very likely to index the supplier's version if it was published there first and the supplier's page has high link equity.

However, if you just want the content on your site for reasons other than directly improving SEO (say, to link readers to for informational purposes), you shouldn't be penalized for copying those articles onto your site. Just be prepared for those pages to not show up in Google search and not contribute to your website's SEO.

And do attribute with a link to the original page where you got the content, that way Google is less likely to think you are trying to spin it as your own original content.

More info here:

What is duplicate content and how can I avoid being penalized for it on my site?