Control your site’s social media previews

Social media previews display information about your site when you share a link to social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter). In this guide, you will learn how to control how your content appears when shared on social media.

WordPress.com automatically adds Open Graph meta tags (og:title, og:description, og:image) to all your posts and pages. When someone shares a link to your content on social media, these tags tell the social network what image, title, and description to display in the preview.

When sharing individual posts or pages, WordPress.com creates previews with this information:

• Title: The title of the page or post being shared.
• Description: The excerpt set for the page or post. If no excerpt is set, the first 195 characters of the content.
• Image: The featured image set for the page or post. If no featured image is set, social networks will look for images in this order:
  • An image from a slideshow.
  • An image from a gallery.
  • Any other image on the site.
  • An image linked from another website.
  • Your profile photo.
  • Other images found on the page, such as an image from the header, footer, or sidebar.

The Link preview section in the Jetpack sidebar lets you see how your post’s link will appear on social networks and in Google search results. This preview shows the title, description, and image that each platform will display based on your post’s Open Graph tags.

To preview your link appearance, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Posts in your site’s dashboard and create or edit a post.
2. Click the green Jetpack icon at the top-right of the editor.
3. Scroll down to the “Link preview” section.
4. Click the Preview button.
5. In the Previews modal, click the icon for each platform (Google, X, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn, Nextdoor, Tumblr, Mastodon, or Bluesky) to see how your link will appear there.

If the preview doesn’t look right, check the “Fix preview issues” section below.

When sharing your site’s home page or archive pages (posts, categories, etc.), WordPress.com creates previews with this information:

• Title: Your site’s title.
• Description: Your site’s tagline.
• Image: Social sites will use:
  • The featured image of the front page, or
  • Your site icon if no featured image is set, or
  • Your site’s logo on sites with the Business plan or higher.

When Jetpack Social shares your post, you can change the message and image that go out—including a different version for each network. Learn how in Customize your Jetpack Social posts.

On sites with the Business plan or higher, the Social Image Generator can automatically create a share image from your post’s title and a template design.

If your shared links aren’t appearing correctly, try clearing the cached social previews and verify that your image meets social media specifications.

Social networks cache social previews, meaning they save a previous version of your post’s details and don’t immediately update with the latest details if you have changed something. If you have modified your page or post settings, you can clear cached social previews to request the social network check your post again for the latest information.

Facebook and WhatsApp:

WhatsApp uses Facebook’s preview system, so fixing Facebook previews will also fix WhatsApp previews. Follow these steps to clear cached social previews on Facebook and WhatsApp:

1. Visit Facebook’s Sharing Debugger.
2. Paste your URL in the input field.
3. Click the Debug button.
4. Review the tags and preview information.
5. Click the “Scrape Again” button to refresh Facebook’s cache.

X (Twitter):

X (Twitter) re-indexes the card tag information on your page roughly every seven days. They offer some additional suggestions in the “Refreshing a Card in a Tweet” section of their troubleshooting guide.

LinkedIn:

1. Visit LinkedIn’s Post Inspector.
2. Enter your URL in the input field.
3. Click Inspect.

Follow these general guidelines when selecting the image you’ll use for your social previews:

• Recommended size: 1200 × 630 px works well across most social networks, and minimizes the risk of cropping issues.
• Aspect ratio: 1.91:1 is generally recommended.
• File types: JPG or PNG.
• Max file size: Keep under 5 MB; while some platforms may allow larger file sizes, 5 MB is the safest standard.
• Center important content: Prevent cropping on smaller viewports.

More information for specific social networks:

• Facebook Image Thumbnail
• LinkedIn Image Thumbnail