How can I get the thumbnail/image and desciption of a foreign url, like facebook or twitter?

I want to create an application where users can share link from other websites and a thumbnail/image appear with a little description under it (something like facebook, twitter, reddit..), how can I get to recognize whether the user actually posted a link and automatically generate a thumbnail and an description from that website if it has one

I'm trying to do this with laravel!

via Chebli Mohamed