For all the publicity and attention Google Plus got from day one, even becoming an integral part of your search results, some of the features one would think of as essential were missing. One perfect example was the lack of a link to the original post in the reshared ones. It not only breaks attribution, something that should be at the basis of the Internet, it’s bad user experience as well. You can’t easily access the posting being shared if you want to comment or +1 directly at the source; it gets especially bad when the one who reshared it disables comments and asks you to comment on the original – good luck finding it, if it’s an older post. And so there goes the user engagement that Google wants so badly!
But enough ranting, because there is not reason to anymore: since about a day ago, shared updates will have the important link to the original, as it was supposed to from day one. There was no official announcement as far as I can tell, so it’s probably still rolling out. And it’s possible that these links will appear only when resharing public posts, otherwise some privacy breaches may happen. Bottom line: Google still listens to users, at least when it’s in their best interest to do so.
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