Open Graph is a protocol, created by Facebook in 2010, that uses meta tags in a web page’s HTML to control the title, description and image social media platforms show when someone shares a link. For marketers, it’s how you decide what people see before they click.

How does Open Graph work?

When someone shares a URL, crawlers from Facebook, LinkedIn and X (formerly known as Twitter) read the og: meta tags in the page’s <head>. They use those tags to build the preview card. Without them, platforms guess at the title, description and image.

The Open Graph protocol lists four required tags for every page:

  • og:title: The headline that appears in the preview
  • og:type: The content type, such as article or website
  • og:image: The URL of the image that appears in the preview
  • og:url: The canonical URL of the page

og:description is a common optional tag that sets the preview’s summary text. Test your previews with Facebook’s Sharing Debugger or LinkedIn’s Post Inspector before you publish.

Benefits of Open Graph

Open Graph puts you in control of how your shared links look, and your previews stay on brand across every platform that reads the tags. Pair your og:image with the right social media image sizes so it displays the way you planned. A strong image and headline earn more clicks and more word-of-mouth shares.

How to use Open Graph

You can add Open Graph tags by hand or with a plugin or content management system (CMS). Follow these steps to set them up:

  1. Open your page’s HTML. Find the <head> section of the page you want to control. In a CMS like WordPress, an SEO plugin gives you fields for each tag, so you don’t need to edit code.
  2. Add the four required tags. Include og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url. Here’s an example:

<meta property=”og:title” content=”Your page title” />
<meta property=”og:type” content=”article” />
<meta property=”og:image” content=”https://example.com/image.jpg” />
<meta property=”og:url” content=”https://example.com/your-page” />

  1. Add an og:description. Write one or two sentences that tell people what they’ll find on the page.
  2. Choose the right image. Use a high-resolution image that matches the recommended size for the platforms you share on, and use a full URL, not a relative path.
  3. Test before you publish. Run your URL through Facebook’s Sharing Debugger or LinkedIn’s Post Inspector to preview the card and clear any cached versions.

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