Google ranks copycats lower than originals. But how does google know which one is posted first or does the sites that get crawled more always have the advantage?
Well, its assumed that the original will be posted/published before the copycat, so whichever site was indexed first, I'd guess.
yes, i think their bases is who was indexed first will be the original. Also if your site is trusted by google, Google thinks you are the orig.
What? What if a smaller site posted it first, but then a few hours a larger site rips it off, and google indexes the larger site the original writer is screwed?
Yes, Google will credit the larger site as the original. If you write a blog post and CNN decided to steal it a few minutes later and post it as their news story, their article would rank much higher. It stinks, but that's just the way it is. Of course, it's not easy to build up a good website that's a trusted source of information by stealing, but it does happen. Look at eBaum's World.
This is something i think google need to look into and do something about. i wrote an original article about getting listed in the yahoo directory, it was totally unique and i wrote it. it was published in both sitepronews, and site-reference, and 6 weeks late i see somebody else has it on their site claiming it as their own. how does google determine that i or him is the owner - its something ive never understood how they can make that decision and be correct?