Why Your Link Preview Shows the Wrong Image

You share a link and the preview card shows an old image, the wrong headline, or nothing at all. Since the card is frequently the only thing someone sees before deciding whether to tap, this costs real traffic.

What actually builds the card

When a link is shared, the platform fetches the destination and reads specific tags from the page's head — the Open Graph tags. The important ones:

• og:title — the headline on the card
• og:description — the line underneath
• og:image — the picture
• og:url — the canonical address

If those are missing, platforms fall back to guessing from the page title and whatever image they can find, which is where most wrong previews come from.

Cause 1: the tags aren't there

The most common cause. Many pages have a title tag but no Open Graph tags at all, so every platform improvises differently.

Fix: add all four. It's a few lines in the page head and it's the single highest-value change here.

Cause 2: the platform cached the old version

This is the one that feels like a bug. Platforms cache preview data aggressively — often for days or longer. You fix the tags, reshare, and still see the old card.

Fix: most major platforms provide a debug or sharing-inspector tool that re-fetches a URL and refreshes their cache. Run the URL through the relevant one after changing tags. Note each platform caches separately, so fixing one doesn't fix the others.

Cause 3: the image doesn't meet requirements

Platforms silently drop images that fail their rules.

• Too small. Aim for 1200x630. Below roughly 600x315 many platforms ignore it.
• Wrong aspect ratio, causing awkward cropping — the important content should sit in the middle.
• Too large a file. Multi-megabyte images often time out during the fetch.
• Behind a redirect or requiring auth. The crawler must be able to fetch it anonymously.
• A relative URL. og:image needs an absolute URL including the scheme.

Cause 4: the crawler can't see your page

• JavaScript-rendered tags. Most crawlers don't execute JavaScript. Tags injected after hydration are invisible to them. They must be in the served HTML.
• Blocked in robots.txt, or behind a login or age gate.
• Slow response, so the crawler gives up before the page finishes.

That first one catches modern frameworks constantly — the tags exist in the browser and not in what the crawler receives.

Cause 5: you're sharing a short link

A short link redirects, and how a platform handles that varies. Most follow it and read the destination's tags, which is what you want. Some read the redirect response itself and find nothing.

Fix: make sure the destination has proper tags. Keep it to one hop — chains are where preview generation breaks down. And avoid pointing at a page that redirects again on arrival.

Cause 6: the destination changed

If you repointed a short link, platforms may still show the card they cached from the old destination. Same fix as cause 2: run it through the platform's sharing debugger to force a refresh.

A checklist before you share something important

1. All four og tags present, with an absolute og:image URL
2. Image at 1200x630, under about 1MB, publicly fetchable
3. Tags present in the served HTML, not injected by JavaScript
4. One redirect hop maximum
5. Run the URL through the debug tool for each platform you'll post to
6. Send it to yourself first and look at the card

That last step takes ten seconds and catches almost everything.

Why it's worth the effort

The card is your headline, your image and your credibility in a single glance, competing against everything else in someone's feed. A link with no preview looks broken; a link with a wrong preview looks careless. Either way people scroll past.

Create links that preview cleanly — one hop, straight to your destination.