My cat's cuter than your cat. (or he used to be before he died)

Thank you everyone. So glad my un-embarrassed part convinced my embarrassed part to just dive in and ask the question. This was all a lot of help. And because I'm in a bit of that cycle you describe, Philip, I have some second-line questions now.

Tom, I just love that the part in my question that was most poignant to you was the concern I have towards the hosting blogger. Seems to me if the generosity is extended by an invitation or acceptance, it's important to consider whatever consequences there could potentially be created by our actions. That stuck out in your response.

Also Tom, you bring up something else that I've been "confused" about: syndicated content. Here I go again with the potentially embarrassing questions:

• What is the difference between duplicated content vs syndicated content?
• Why is syndicated not considered duplicated?
• And then there's....for instance, the old, now dangerous practice of article submissions which creates duplicated content if that same content or article is on your website. How is that not considered syndicated? Does it simply rely on the basic intent of the site you are submitting the article to?

One more: please tell me if I'm getting this correctly and which would be best. If one were to guest blog and believe the content would be especially relevant to their own followers it's OK to post the same post on their own blog but best to noindex OR rel=cononical it passing up potential juice for yourself, but still getting to offer up the content.

Using snippets makes sense. I've been doing those across the board for my own blog and have occasionally wondered if any of that could be considered duplicate content if I use a quote from the blog post or if I repeat the same snippet...does any of that matter?

Once again, Thank You. I love getting help and really appreciate it.