Facebook has redesigned News Feed stories about users recommending places to include more images.

Recommendation stories now display the place’s cover photo in addition to its profile picture. The story will also include a user’s star rating if the user has made one. The new design is more likely to catch users’ eyes in the feed and could lead more people discover places their friends like. It might also encourage a user’s friends to share their recommendation for a place if they’ve been to it.

Ratings and recommendations are a key part of Facebook’s new Nearby search for mobile and are going to be important as the even newer Graph Search feature rolls out to users on desktop.

Recommendations are only enabled for pages that are associated with a location. Any fan page can gain this status by adding an address to its info section, though we imagine Facebook might one day expand recommendations to all pages, including consumer goods, websites and other services. Place recommendations first appeared in May 2011, but Nearby and Graph Search show the company increasing its emphasis on helping users find new places to go based on friends’ experiences.

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