Google+ rolled out some changes this week that should know about. The biggest change is in the cover photo for your pages. If you already customized a cover photo, you will need to go back and change it as it may look really bad like mine did after the change.

Before the change, I uploaded a quickly made basic cover photo. It’s blank on the right because that’s where my avatar (in my case the blogathon button) was overlayed.

After the change, it looked like this:

As you can see, the avatar is moved to the left and rounded off and your name and url are superimposed over the top, whether you want it to or not. The +1 button is on the top right.

Google Plus Cover Photos are Much BIGGER

The biggest change is that the cover photo can now be a LOT bigger. The new dimensions are up to 2120 x 1192 pixels which is HUGE.

When you login, it will let you know that headers changed and ask if you want to change to the new format. It will warn you that you can’t change back. If you never changed your cover image, it will probably look okay. However if you did upload a custom one and it looks bad, you have no choice but to change.

I quickly created a new one and uploaded it. It’ will do for now.

When you upload your image, you have the option to crop it a bit. I suggest leaving the bottom fairly plain to accommodate the overlay.

When You Scroll Down…

Since the image is so big (it takes up my whole screen!) if you scroll down more than a little bit, or click on one of the tabs (about, posts etc.) it will change and show a grey bar with your image and name. If you scroll back up it goes back to showing the full image.

Your About Page

The about page has changed too. The different about sections are separated into “cards” and when you are logged in as your page, there is a clear edit button for each to easily edit each section.

Want to Know More?

You can read more about the changes on Sara McKinley’s Google+ profile. AutoRevo did a post on the changes as well that includes a photoshop template to help you make a new cover photo. I don’t use photoshop so can’t vouch for how it works.

[Update] Looks like there is a way to have a shorter cover photo.  I haven’t tried it but see what DainBinder has to say if you don’t like the new size.

So what do you think about the changes?