Are you faced with the challenge that no preview image is displayed when you share a blog article on your Facebook page? There is a very simple solution to this problem. Facebook offers a very useful tool for this, the Facebook Debugger.
What do I need the Facebook Debugger for?
You can test links you want to share on Facebook through this tool. To do this, simply enter the URL that you would like to test. Now the debugger will show you when the crawler was last on this page, what information (due to the Open Graph Settings sees) and how the entered URL is displayed on Facebook.
If the URL hasn't been shared on Facebook yet, Facebook will show you this with the message "This URL hasn't been shared on Facebook before" and you can click on "Fetch new information" retrieve the information for the first time.
Metadata for Facebook
It makes sense about so-called Metadata Telling Facebook which images to use for sharing specific URLs, for example. You can do this again on the very useful SEO tool YOAST To fall back on. With this you can not only tell Facebook which image to use when sharing, but also which one Title have and what Meta Description to be handed over to Facebook.
What image resolution does Facebook recommend for thumbnails?
The Facebook recommended resolution for thumbnails (of link posts) is 1200 628 x pixels in jpg or png format.
Fix outdated Facebook thumbnails
If you've shared a blog post image, you can use the Facebook Debugger to refresh the cache. This means that your newly saved picture will be recognized by Facebook. To do this, simply click on “get new scraping info”:
What does Facebook need Open Graph tags for anyway?
In order for Facebook to be able to display a preview when certain URLs are shared, Facebook needs information on the URL, the image, the meta description and the content type (e.g. an article, an image, a video, etc.). This meta information is passed in the form of so-called Open Graph tags and is part of Facebook's Open Graph protocol, which is also used by other social media platforms (e.g. LinkedIn or Twitter).
For this reason, it is very important that you use tools like YOAST to maintain the meta information of your blog articles. I have you an example from my article 11 ways to gain more confidence attached:
To ensure that your posts on Facebook & Co. are always displayed correctly, you should always maintain the most important Open Graph tags. I have listed the most important meta information (such as URL, title and image) in the following table:
| Open Graph | Declaration | Example |
|---|---|---|
| above:url | This tag specifies the URL that is fetched from Facebook (the time when Facebook last did this is shown under "Time Scraped") | https://www.petitchapeau.de/11-wege-fuer-mehr-vertrauen-im-alltag/ |
| above:type | The content type: Image, Video, Music, Website. Depending on the content type, other properties can also be queried. | Website |
| above:title | This tag determines what title will appear below the image when you share your link | 11 ways to increase your confidence in everyday life Petit Chapeau: Your travel blog for the soul |
| and: image | The URL of the image to display when sharing | https://www.petitchapeau.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Trust-Life-11-Wege-zum-Vertrauen.jpg |
| above: description | The meta description of the shared link | How can I trust life? Many people ask themselves this question. In my blog article, I present 11 ways for more trust in life and everyday life. |
I hope this article has helped you. Feel free to share your experience with Facebook Debugger or other useful tools below this post. I would be glad!
Thank you for this post, I've always wondered where Facebook gets the pictures from. Very useful tool!!