authorship

Google has officially announced the end of authorship, a feature within search that gave users an idea of who exactly wrote the content behind the link before clicking it. Paired with a headshot, the name of the content creator was for a very long time shown alongside the number of Google+ circles he or she was in as well as a link to read more content by that author. But as of today—while headshots have been gone for a while—this feature is completely finished and links in search are back to being a bit more uniform.

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Google has just announced a pair of new features for its Google+ social network, both of which are centered around sharing and creating more content. First off, Google+ now offers the ability to embed public posts from the service into any webpage. The embedded posts are fully functional and allow readers to +1 and comment on the post, as well as follow the original source. To embed a post, find a public Google+ post and click the drop-down arrow and find the ‘Embed Post’ option. From there, copy the given code onto your webpage and the post will appear.

With embedded posts, site owners can now add your public Google+ posts to their web pages — as a primary source, for example, or to highlight your point of view. Text, photo and media posts are all supported, and the embeds are fully interactive, so visitors can +1, comment and follow you inline.

Also new is integration between Google+ Sign-In and Google’s Authorship program. Now, if you are signed into either a Typepad or WordPress blog with your Google account, any articles you publish will automatically be associated with your Google+ profile. For instance, when your blog posts appear in Google Search or News, your name, profile image, and profile link will all be associated with the post. Currently this functionality is available only to WordPress and Typepad users, though Google is also working with About.com, WikiHow, and Examiner to expand the feature. 
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