How does Google handle duplicate content across multiple sources?

Republication and syndication used to be a workable amplification tactic; Google’s duplicate handling has substantially closed that gap. The engine fingerprints content, compares against the indexed web, identifies canonical and duplicate versions through the canonical tag, the link graph, and content similarity, and clusters duplicates so that only one version typically ranks for any given query. The original or most-authoritative source usually wins. For reputation work, the implication is to invest in genuinely original content placed on outlets with their own authority rather than syndicating one piece across many low-authority sites and expecting all of them to rank. Quality syndication where the syndicating outlet adds editorial value and uses correct canonical signals can still work. Mass syndication for ranking purposes does not.