Google+ link posts receive massive thumbnails like Facebook

An update rolling out today makes posts with links standout with super-sized thumbnails and bigger link titles.

Back in early February, Google rolled out an improvement which turns link URLs in posts into buttons, which when rolled over with a cursor, would allow the user to add the associated +Page to their circles. The update rolling out today compliments this change quite well: webpage titles and images are now larger.

Now that links have taken center-stage in the Google+ stream, referrals from the platform should no doubt increase, mainly due to the click target for links have increased dramatically, thanks to the new, bigger thumbnails. It should also decrease the need to use an image in a post in order to make it standout in the stream.

How posts appear if the image isn't large enough.

Similarly to how Facebook's link posts, the new look for Google+ link posts will only be displayed if there is a large enough image on the page, which saves our eyeballs from the horrible sight of pixelation (a very good thing). Instead, they will continue to show with a smaller thumbnail, as shown above.

Facebook link post with larger image.

Both Facebook (shown above) and Twitter have rolled out similar improvements in previous months to make link posts in their respective feeds more visually stimulating. Twitter's version (seen below) is only available for a limited number of news websites.

Expanded Twitter link post with larger image.

It is good to see Google+ catching up to it's social media network peers in this regard. Hopefully this update rolls out to the apps soon too.

What do you think of the new, in-your-face link posts?

Thanks to +Stb Hernández