Surely Google should be able to figure out from the link back that my article is the source article?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Rob Baker: Google should be smarter than this
  (1) I write an article and publish it on my website
  (2) I allow another site to publish my article, and in the text link back to my source article.
  
  RESULT : Google ranks the other article ahead of mine!
  
  Google should surely be able to figure out from the link back that my article is the source article.
• 
  Ian Dixon: Now somebody else may correct me on this +Rob Baker ;but I think the way to approach is to use rel=canonical to tell Google which is the main copy.
  I'd also check the version on the other site to see if the link to yours is being set as nofollow because that would largely cause it to be ignored
• 
  Rob Baker: +Ian Dixon ;Thanks. There isn't a nofollow tag on the link, but there is no canonical tag.  ;Not sure they'd know what I'm talking about, if I mentioned that!
• 
  Ian Dixon: It's easy to do if they are using wordpress with the Yoast plugin. Then I'm unsure how to do it either.
  And like I said it is uncertain if it is the best approach
• 
  Brent Wildman: Canonical is the best way to do it, linking back being the second best. Canonical is easy, just past the tag into the head section of the page if they're not on Wordpress or using includes.
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  W.E. Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 02:26:04 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/surely_google_should_be_able_to_figure_out_from_the_link_back_that_my_article_is_the_source_article
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  Rob Baker: +W.E. Jonk ;Tx