A couple of months ago, Google+ received some link post loving, affecting how link shares are rendered in the stream. The update brought Google+ into 2014 where massive thumbnails and eye-catching headlines complete with a description is a thing, but the old format (small thumbnail and no description) would appear if the size of the images weren't big enough. Unfortunately to us and other content creators, Google+ hasn't made any documentation regarding this (up until now), making sharing your content with the new link snippets a gamble.
Thankfully, no more guessing is required, and by following the details below, you'll be able to make your link shares stand out in the stream every time.
Here's the recipe
First things first; In order to have the new link post format render when someone shares your content, you need to make sure that the image you intend to use as a thumbnail is 506px wide at a minimum. Be sure that images are no wider in aspect ratio than 5:2 (width:height).
Here's a little extra tip from Google itself from the source:
"An image meeting the above requirements is always rendered with a width of 506px. The maximum image size that Google+ allows in the stream is 506 x 303px (width x height)."
In order for descriptions to show along with the new link post format, you need to specify microdata via Open Graph or schema.org tags. More information on what these are and code markups can be found on the newly-created Article Rendering page over on the Google Developers site.
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| If everything goes right, your share should hopefully look like this |