An og:image tag is only a pointer. A social crawler still needs to fetch the page, read the tag, request the image URL and decide whether that image is suitable for its card. A tag can exist and still fail if the image is private, broken, blocked, too large or returned with an unexpected content type.

1. Confirm the og:image URL is absolute

Use a fully qualified HTTPS URL, such as https://example.com/images/share-card.jpg. A relative path like /images/share-card.jpg may not be interpreted consistently by external crawlers.

2. Open the image URL directly

Paste the image URL into a private browser window. It should return the image without requiring a login, cookies, a temporary signature or a referrer header. Check that the response is successful and has an image content type.

3. Check dimensions and aspect ratio

A 1200 × 630 image (about 1.91:1) is a widely used starting point for large social preview images. It is a practical recommendation, not a universal guarantee: platform layouts, file limits and supported formats can change. Keep important text away from the outer edges because some card layouts crop differently.

4. Check robots, firewall and server behaviour

  • Make sure your CDN or firewall does not block social crawlers.
  • Avoid hotlink protection that rejects requests without a browser-like referrer.
  • Check that image requests do not redirect to a login page or HTML error document.
  • Ensure the origin responds quickly and does not intermittently return 5xx errors.

5. Put the main image metadata early

Place the Open Graph properties in the document head in the server-rendered HTML. Add og:image:alt to describe the image. Include og:image:width and og:image:height when you know the real dimensions; do not invent dimensions.

<meta property="og:title" content="A useful page title" />
<meta property="og:description" content="A concise page summary." />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/page" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/share-card.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image:alt" content="Description of the share card" />
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />

6. Refresh the platform cache

Social networks and messaging apps may cache metadata. After deploying a fix, use the relevant platform's official debugger or inspector where available to request a fresh scrape. A correct page response does not guarantee every existing message updates immediately.

A quick troubleshooting order

  1. Run an Open Graph URL inspection.
  2. Confirm the page returns the expected og:image value.
  3. Check the image URL's HTTP status, content type and dimensions.
  4. Check CDN/firewall access for crawlers.
  5. Deploy the correction and refresh the platform cache.
Try OpenGraph Preview

Use the OG image checker to test the page and identify metadata or image-fetch problems.

Open the free tool →