Google has been rolling out its new full-width redesign of Google Discover. But the issue is that it is taking publishers' images and cropping them to fit this new width.
As Gagan Ghotra noted on X - Google Discover will crop your images to make it fit in the design. But that means, important aspects of the image may be cropped out.
He shared this image of one of my stories having the hero image cropped, here is a side by side:
Here are more:
@rustybrick oops even SER images are cutting off and too much zoomed in now in the feeds of users. pic.twitter.com/J2tgMjOL7l
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) April 17, 2025
He did reach out to Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, on social but he has yet to reply:
FYI - With new full width design rolling out for Discover feed, I'm noticing some featured images getting too much stretched out on user devices and becoming blurry (might impact CTR 🙃). Make sure to check if it's happening with your images too cuz even the ones aligned with… https://t.co/gM9RYAjPPx
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) April 13, 2025
He is right, the Discover help documentation says, "Large images need to be at least 1200 px wide." Maybe Google needs to update the documentation to account for this new design?
Forum discussion at X.
