Open Graph Tags: The Complete Guide for 2026

Everything you need to know about Open Graph tags — what og:title, og:image, og:description, and og:type do, how to implement them, and how to debug them across platforms.

What are Open Graph tags?

Open Graph (OG) tags are HTML meta tags that control how your page appears when shared on social media platforms. They were created by Facebook in 2010 and have since become the standard for social sharing metadata — used by Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, and iMessage.

Without OG tags, social platforms show a plain URL or fall back to scraping the first image or paragraph they find — which almost never looks good. With OG tags, you control the title, description, and image exactly.

The required OG tags

<!-- Required for all pages -->
<meta property="og:title" content="Your Page Title" />
<meta property="og:description" content="A 1-2 sentence summary of the page." />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://yourdomain.com/og.jpg" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://yourdomain.com/your-page" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />

These five tags are the minimum required for a rich preview card on Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, Discord, and WhatsApp.

Recommended additional tags

<!-- Explicit image dimensions (helps crawlers skip image downloads for size detection) -->
<meta property="og:image:width" content="1200" />
<meta property="og:image:height" content="630" />
<meta property="og:image:type" content="image/jpeg" />

<!-- Site name shown in platform card subtitles -->
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Your Site Name" />

<!-- Twitter/X cards (Twitter uses its own tag namespace) -->
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Your Page Title" />
<meta name="twitter:description" content="A 1-2 sentence summary." />
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://yourdomain.com/og.jpg" />

<!-- For articles: author and publish date -->
<meta property="article:author" content="https://yourdomain.com/about" />
<meta property="article:published_time" content="2026-03-14T00:00:00Z" />

Tag-by-tag reference

og:title

The title shown in the link preview card. Should be 55–70 characters. This can be slightly different from your HTML <title> — optimize it for social sharing rather than SEO.

og:description

2-4 sentences describing the page content. Shown under the title in most cards. Aim for 100–200 characters. Longer descriptions are truncated.

og:image

The most important tag. Must be an absolute HTTPS URL to a publicly accessible image. Recommended size: 1200×630 px. JPEG or PNG. Under 5 MB. See our OG image size guide for platform-specific requirements.

og:url

The canonical URL for the page. Used by platforms as the cache key — important for preventing duplicate entries when the same content is accessible from multiple URLs.

og:type

Defaults to website. For blog posts or news articles, use article. For product pages: product. Type affects how some platforms format the preview card.

Platform-specific behavior

  • Twitter/X: requires its own twitter:card tag to show a large image card. Without it, Twitter falls back to a small square thumbnail even if og:image is present.
  • LinkedIn: caches aggressively. Use the Post Inspector to clear cache after updating tags.
  • Discord: reads OG tags for embeds. Does not show a card if the image is HTTP (non-HTTPS).
  • WhatsApp: does not execute JavaScript — requires static HTML tags. Preview only appears for the link sender, not always for recipients in groups.
  • Slack: shows a smaller thumbnail unless the image is at least 500 px wide. Slack uses its own bot to unfurl links.

How to debug OG tags

  1. View page source: check the raw HTML (not DevTools) for your OG tags. If they're absent, they're not in the server response.
  2. Use a preview tool: paste your URL into OG Fixer to see the live metadata and preview card across platforms.
  3. Use platform debuggers: Facebook Sharing Debugger, LinkedIn Post Inspector, Twitter Card Validator.
  4. Clear platform cache: even after fixing tags, platforms may show stale previews. Trigger a re-scrape via the platform debugger.

Want to instantly verify your Open Graph tags are correct? Paste your URL into OG Fixer — it fetches metadata server-side (just like social crawlers), scores your tags, and shows a live preview across Twitter, LinkedIn, Discord, and more.

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