Where are my copies going?

Are you talking about copying ... to the clipboard? That is what it sounds like.

You select an area and choose "copy". Then you position the cursor where you like and choose "paste."

http://help.apple.com/iphone/9/#/iph3c50ee9e

OK, thanks for the explanation.

That copy still goes to your clipboard. The URL gets copied there.

If you open a new page in Safari and place your cursor in the top (URL) area, you will see a "Paste and Go" option. That would get you to the same page you copied (to your clipboard).

Glad that helped and it worked out for you.

Enjoy your iPhone!

Pressing "Paste and Go" retrieves the copied URL.

Your clipboard is simply a section of memory on your iPhone. The way to view it is to paste its contents.

Clipboards are very common on computers, used in this same way. The original iPhone (introduced in 2007) did not include a clipboard (cut and paste) capability. That was introduced some time later, like 2009 or 2010.