Open Graph & Link Previews

Open Graph tags define how a link looks when shared on social media — title, image, description. Getting them right is the difference between a compelling preview card and a blank box.

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Definition

Open Graph (OG) is a protocol developed by Facebook that uses HTML meta tags to define how a web page appears when its URL is shared on social media platforms. The tags specify the preview card's title, description, image and other attributes — creating a visual preview that appears in social feeds, messaging apps and link-sharing contexts.

Without OG tags, social platforms attempt to infer preview content from page text and images, often producing poor or missing previews. With correctly implemented OG tags, the preview card is controlled and intentional.

The Core Open Graph Tags

Twitter/X uses its own twitter:card tags, but falls back to OG tags if Twitter-specific tags are absent. LinkedIn and most other platforms use the standard OG protocol.

How Short Links Interact with Open Graph

When a short link is shared on social media, the platform's crawler follows the redirect chain to the final destination URL and reads the OG tags from the destination page. The preview card reflects the destination's OG tags — the short link URL itself is not what the crawler reads for preview content.

This means:

• A well-implemented destination page with correct OG tags generates a good preview card regardless of whether the link is short or long
• A destination page with missing or incorrect OG tags generates a poor preview regardless of the short link
• The short link domain appears in some platform displays (Facebook shows the domain below the preview title) — a branded domain looks more authoritative than a generic shortener domain in this position

Common Open Graph Issues

• Missing og:image. The most common issue — pages without an OG image generate text-only preview cards with significantly lower engagement than image-inclusive cards.
• Wrong image dimensions. OG images should be 1200×630px. Images that are too small appear pixelated or are not displayed. Images that are square or portrait-oriented may be cropped unexpectedly.
• Cached stale previews. Social platforms cache OG data after the first crawl. Updating OG tags on a page does not immediately update previews on already-shared links. Most platforms provide a scraper/debugger tool to force a cache refresh.
• og:url mismatch. If og:url points to a different URL than the actual page, some platforms may show incorrect preview data or canonical the link to the wrong destination.

Related Terms

• Click Tracking
• Canonical URL
• Branded Links
• Redirect Types