We've had news articles sharing to facebook correctly for a long time but as of last weekend we are starting to see the wrong og:image when shared to facebook. Using the debugger tool, the first time it is fetched I get a warning "image too small" which is probably why it defaults to another image. But the image in question is not too small. Could this be some issue with headers of my images in Amazon Bucket maybe? Cannot pin point the problem yet.
Pressing scrape again 2 times then I get the correct og:image
As an attempt to fix this I have added og:image:width and og:image:height but so far to no avail.
Debugger url: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.maltatoday.com.mt%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F79568%2Fsicily_firefighters_caused_fires_for_cash
Adding Height & Width is NOT enough for everyone.
I've done the same for my websites and it didn't fixed it. It always needed a second Scraping, and then it will re-fetch the correct image.
Even after adding all of the meta OG tags didn't improve the situation.
I've noticed A LOT of other people experiencing this same issue, and adding height & width meta doesn't solve it.
In this case you'll need to add an iframe in your footer, and set it to be invisible and on page load to go to the facebook debugger, and scrape the url one more time for you automatically.
This is the solution according to Facebook. You'll need to scrape a second time (reference best practises under "Pre-caching images"). This is counter productive to be done manually, so just add the following code in your footer and you're done.
<iframe style="width:0; height:0; margin:0; padding:0; border:0; position:absolute;" src="https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/?q=<?php the_permalink(); ?>"></iframe>
A few notes to keep in mind:
This link leading to the debugger tool is valid in the time of writing this (August 2017). I've seen the link being different in the past, so if the link has changed in the future, just change the link in the iframe appropriately.
The part of the url right after "?q=" is the place where you place your link that you're posting to Facebook. I've used the_permalink() because it automatically checks the page's url and puts it in the link. If you'll like to do this for a single post, then just replace this with your actual link. This is for a WordPress php page. If this is not the correct code for your page, then change it into the language you're using.
I hope this helps everyone looking for an answer of this weird Facebook bug. It could have saved me ~6h of my life.
Cheers
Credit to user Dan for giving a clue on how to solve this.
Adding og:image:width and og:image:height as additional meta tags solved the issue for me. User nunsy_grey mentioned that this doesn't solve it for some user so worth looking at this alternative solution
Hey this is probably a stupid question. Our organization is currently working on a replatform and we are almost done! At this point we're just fixing tiny bugs, like this one.
If I were to copy/paste this URL into Facebook, it would supply the correct title/description for the article automatically: http://prod-www.startribune.com/isle-royale-wolf-population-plummets-to-three/300340911/
However if I were to copy/paste THIS url into facebook, it would choose the first text it encounters after the start of the section of the page it scrolls to. http://prod-www.startribune.com/isle-royale-wolf-population-plummets-to-three/300340911/#comments
The only difference in the URL's is the addition of #comments to the end.
What I'm wondering, how would I have the #comments URL provide the same title/description that is pulled into facebook that the page does when you go to it sans #comments fragment?
Do I just need to redeclare the meta tags in that part of the page?
The issue seems to be that there really isn't an issue. All of the URLs generated for canonical and og:url are pointing to what, ultimately, will be the home for the articles, but currently those URLs don't exist yet. I have a feeling this will be a non-issue once the replatform code goes live.
I have an app with blog records per each user. I have add share button to my app, to give ability to post interesting blog records to users time line or to send to other user. But in default it takes image and text for share as it wants and not always correctly. So I find out that it can be dirven by meta tags (using for example "image" property to set image for share dialog). That's work ok on main page (where I'd like to make ability share with whole application), but on pages of blog records I cann`t customize it. meta tag should be in , but all info (short text and image of blog post) I get later in body, so I can insert it. How can I manage with this? Or may be there is another way to share content with?
What blog engine are you using? If it is a wordpress - try this plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-share-new/ from offician facebook docs http://developers.facebook.com/docs/. Otherwise I'd suggest to find a facebook plugin for your blog engine using google and install it.
I've been reading guides and examples for a long time (hours) but I can't manage. I tried to use all html meta tag like title, description, and og:property. Also tried to use the link sharer and also to create a new blank page with just the info I want to share to facebook in order to test. Also I tried to generate an random url in php so to have always a different url variable (the url to share and also the url of the main page containing the script). I also grabbed (url linter) a lot of time the url to clean the cache of facebook. It always give me the title of the site domain as title or the url itself as the shared title and description. I don't know what to do.
The main web site is from joomla. In the code of index of joomla I put a php include if the url has the variable "articolo" id. This incuded php page has regulat head body etc. So maybe I facebook check the main meta of joomla first? So now I tried to open a popup with just the page for sharing. Look here: link
It's possible that the title is locked in, meaning that after X number of likes Facebook doesn't allow you to change it anymore. Can you give us an example URL you're having issues with?
EDIT
Ok, now the link you provided shows some very interesting output. http://modernolatina.it/wjs/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid=258&autore=6&articolo=6
First, you webserver, instead of sending back a 200 code, is sending back a 500 code.
Secondly the HTML your webserver is sending back has two HTML tags (Do a view source on the content returned)
Fix up those two issues and I think the linter will be happier with your page.
Test your page here:
http://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
When someone posts a link on facebook, a script usually scans that link for any images, and displays a quick thumbnail next to the post. For certain URLs though (including mine), FB doesn't seem to pick up anything, despite their being a number of images on that page.
I read up that FB prefers the "image_src" rel tag for the image the user wishes to specify, but this does not generate that thumbnail either for my site.
My url goes directly to the DNS, and is not forwarded, so I don't imagine that could be the problem either.
Does anyone have an idea as to why FB can't generate any thumbnails from my site?
The easiest way is just a link tag:
<link rel="image_src" href="http://stackoverflow.com/images/logo.gif" />
But there are some other things you can add to your site to make it more Social media friendly:
Open Graph Tags
Open Graph tags are tags that you add to the <head> of your website to describe the entity your page represents, whether it is a band, restaurant, blog, or something else.
An Open Graph tag looks like this:
<meta property="og:tag name" content="tag value"/>
If you use Open Graph tags, the following six are required:
og:title - The title of the entity.
og:type - The type of entity. You must select a type from the list of Open Graph types.
og:image - The URL to an image that represents the entity. Images must be at least 50 pixels by 50 pixels. Square images work best, but you are allowed to use images up to three times as wide as they are tall.
og:url - The canonical, permanent URL of the page representing the entity. When you use Open Graph tags, the Like button posts a link to the og:url instead of the URL in the Like button code.
og:site_name - A human-readable name for your site, e.g., "IMDb".
fb:admins or fb:app_id - A comma-separated list of either the Facebook IDs of page administrators or a Facebook Platform application ID. At a minimum, include only your own Facebook ID.
More information on Open Graph tags and details on Administering your page can be found on the Open Graph protocol documentation.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
I know this question is old, but I recently dealt with the exact same problem and went round and round on it for a couple weeks. Multiple searches on Google turned up a lot of useful information, but most of it was focused on Open Graph tags, which I wasn't interested in using. Turns out my site had multiple issues, but here are some of the basics.
As EightyEight said, make sure your HTML is valid - and the same goes for your javascript and server-side code (PHP, ASP, etc.). I had a small PHP error in a piece of code that was executing as a separate call to the server from the main page. Due to a number of bizarre coincidences, that code was generating a 500 error - but ONLY for IE6 and strict parsing engines like the W3C validator and the Facebook page crawler. The problem didn't appear in modern browsers (Chrome 4, FF 3.5, IE 8, etc) so I didn't see it right away, but older/stricter clients were showing the 500 every time and that was the main reason FB wasn't crawling our page (when everything else seemed to be correct).
Regarding Randy's response, he's correct that Facebook will keep an old cached copy of your page long after you've updated it. FB claims it's only held for 24 hours, but I experienced much longer times than that. FORTUNATELY, FB has released their "URL Linter" tool that will show you a preview of how your page will appear when being shared on FB, and it will force FB to instantly update its cache of your page. This was a lifesaving tool. You can find it at http://developers.facebook.com/tools/lint/
Regarding the URL Linter tool, be aware that each variation of a URL is cached separately on Facebook, so "www.example.com" is not the same as "example.com". Also, unique capitalization is stored as well, so "ExampleOne.com" is not the same as "exampleone.com". (This led to a lot of confusion between my client and myself when it appeared to me that the cache had been updated just fine and the client claimed they weren't seeing the updates. Turns out I was looking at exampleone.com and had used Linter to update the cache, but they were looking at exampleOne.com which I hadn't submitted to Linter. As a result, I ended up submitting quite a few variations of the URL to Linter just to cover the bases.)
WyrdNEXUS's advice to use the image_src link tag is spot-on. This allows you to be sure that FB is scraping the best possible image for your page. There are some varying guidelines out there about what specs the image file should have, but I've successfully used a 128px square image and have seen a 130x97 image make it through as well. Here is Facebook's official documentation from http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/:
Images must be at least 50 pixels by 50 pixels. Square images work best, but you are allowed to use images up to three times as wide as they are tall.
Obviously, FB will resize a large image for you, but you'll almost always get better results if you resize it yourself beforehand.
Regarding Mike Cooper's link to the eHow article, avoid using step #1 in that article. It was valid advice when the article was written and when Mike posted the link, but it's now better to use the URL Linter tool for previewing how your page will appear when being shared. By using Linter, you won't cause FB to cache a (potentially) bad copy of the page before you get a chance to tweak it.
Use the facebook lintter available here. http://developers.facebook.com/tools/lint/
This will check your link and re fetch any images. this also clears any old cache.
Or try this - https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
To change Title, Description and Image, we need to add some meta tags under head tag.
STEP 1 :
Add meta tags under head tag
<html>
<head>
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.test.com/" />
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.test.com/img/fb-logo.png" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Prepaid Phone Cards, low rates for International calls with Lucky Prepay" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Cheap prepaid Phone Cards. Low rates for international calls anywhere in the world." />
NEXT STEP :
Click on below link
https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
Add your URL in text box (e.g http://www.test.com/) where you mentioned the tags. Click on DEBUG button.
Its done.
You can verify here https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.test.com/
In above url, u = your website link
ENJOY !!!!
try this: http://www.ehow.com/how_4938148_thumbnail-show-up-facebook-share.html
Is the site's HTML valid? Run it through w3c validation service.
Actually, if you've already tried linking that page on Facebook BEFORE adding the "image_src" link, Facebook will keep using the old cached copy and not even see your changes. Try modifying the URL by removing or adding the 'www', or duplicate your page to test it.
I've noticed that Facebook does not take thumbnails from websites if they start with https, is that maybe your case?
had the same problem and figured out that my head closing tag was in the wrong place
Old question but recently I seemed to be running into same issue with thumbnail images from my link not showing in status updates on Facebook. I post for many clients and this is relatively new.
FB doesn't seem to like long URLs anymore — if you use a URL shortener such as goo.gl or bitly.com, the thumbnail from your link/post will appear in your FB update.
Try using something like this:
<link rel="image_src" href="http://yoursite.com/graphics/yourimage.jpg" /link>`
Seems to work just fine on Firefox as long as you use a full path to your image.
Trouble is it get vertically offset downward for some reason. Image is 200 x 200 as recommended somewhere I read.
If you used any plugin for seo then Check 1st your seo plugin settings.Then find out Noindex setting if Enable Media for Noindex then disable it.