Essentially you're describing the same thing - using a microformat to tag the author (?rel=author) and then linking a G+ profile to the blog (I didn't know it would work with a generic profile page). What you say about Google using this to identify original content is accurate - I think the fact you need a G+ account to do it also helps them out. Everything I have read stipulates needing a G+ account, but I might have this wrong - if anyone know any differently I'd like to hear it. Any idea on how to accomplish this with a Google+ page? I've got a business and I've got it linked to my G+ profile with it's own separate G+ page. Each time I go to the authorship portion of this it tries to link it to my G+ profile and not my G+ page. @Justin - no, sorry, I haven't seen any information on connecting up a G+ page with a G+ profile - the instructions here assume you have a matching email / site domain, although there are further steps you can take if your email doesn't match the site domain. I would probably look at those, and see if that can help. Unfortunately I'm unable to do step #2 with a G+ page. Luckily, I just implemented step #1 and tested it with the rich snippets testing tool and it shows up properly. I'll follow up with you in a few weeks and let you know if