Facebook Share Image Not Showing? How to Fix Wrong og:image

If a URL has previously been shared on Facebook (by anyone, anywhere), Facebook "remembers" the information associated with that URL (like the image, title and description) even if it's wrong or a completely blank image.

Open Graph (og) Tags: What are They?

Open Graph tags are part of Facebook's Open Graph protocol, which other social media sites have adopted in different ways. Open Graph tags, or OGPs, are snippets of code that control how URLs are displayed when shared on social media.

Open Graph Tags Tell Facebook What Image, Title & Description to Display

Open Graph (OG) tags are HTML markup that help social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter interpret and display content when it's shared. They can include metadata such as:

• Title (og:title)
• Description (og:description)
• Thumbnail image (og:image)
• URL (og:url)
• Locale (og:locale)
• Website name (og:site_name)
• Type of content (og:type) and more.

What happens if my web page doesn't have Open Graph tags?

Missing or incorrect Open Graph tags are the primary cause for a missing or incorrect Facebook share image.

If you don’t have any "Open Graph tags" specified for the page you are sharing, Facebook can only do it’s best to fill in the blanks for image, title and description. Since Facebook is not a mind-reader, the result is rarely what you want and sometimes really bad.

How to fix a Wrong Facebook Share Image:

1. Check that you have Open Graph Tags set up for the page or post you are sharing

How to check if Open Graph tags are set up:

Go to the Facebook debugger (You need to be logged in to Facebook in order to be able to use the tool.), enter the URL you want to check and click the "Debug" button.

If your Open Graph Tags are not specified, you will see warnings that look like this:

Warning: the 'og:image' property should be explicitly provided, even if a value can be inferred from other tags.

If you see these warnings....STOP...You need to first specify the share image and description by setting your Open Graph Tags.

How Do You Set Open Graph Tags?

You can add Open Graph tags to WordPress using SEO plugins like Yoast SEO and All in One SEO (AIOSEO), or you can also use a dedicated plugin such as Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags.

We have written a post that demonstrates different ways to add Open Graph tags to your WordPress page/post.

How to Verify My Open Graph Tags Are Set

You can use various online tools like OpenGraph.xyz or Open Graph Validator to check the status of your Open Graph tags, or you can check manually by following the steps below. (This is also demonstrated in the video in this chapter - How to check if you have Open Graph tags set)

To verify that your Open Graph tags are set manually:

1. Open the web page you want to check in an incognito window. It's important to check from a browser where you are not logged in to the WordPress admin.
2. Right-click anywhere in the content of the page and select "View(or Show) page source.
3. Control+F or CMD+F and search for "og:" which will highlight the Open Graph tags. Check that the url for the og:image is correct.

After you have verified that your Open Graph tags are in place, then proceed to #2.

2. Re-scrape your URL using the Facebook Debugger

Once you are certain your Open Graph tags are set, you will need to have Facebook "re-scrape" your URL using the Facebook Debugger.

Re-scraping forces Facebook to clear out the old information it has stored about your page and recognize your updated information in the Open Graph tags. (See this section of the video - Use the debugger to rescrape your page)

Troubleshooting Errors on the Facebook Debugger

For cases when you have updated your og:image and rescraped the url using the debugger, and the image or share information is STILL wrong, first try clicking the "Scrape Again" button 2 or 3 times. Who knows why, but sometimes it works the 2nd or 3rd try.

If Facebook is still not recognizing your Open Graph tags, try some of these troubleshooting tips...

Is your website using a Caching plugin or service?

Caching plugins or services display cached information in order to save time on page load. This can mean that your website is showing cached (old) information to Facebook making it impossible for Facebook to get the updated information.

After you set up your Open Graph tags, be sure to clear the cache of your website in your caching plugin or service so the new information will be available for Facebook to fetch.

Plugin Conflict

Try deactivating your plugins one by one to see if any are the cause of a conflict with Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin. You will need to "rescrape" the URL using the Facebook debugger after deactivating each plugin to check.

Yoast WordPress SEO plugin will usually give you a warning if another plugin will conflict with the use of it's Open Graph tags.

That being said, sometimes Yoast WordPress SEO itself is not compatible with your particular server or set up for some reason.

Make Sure You Have the Latest Version of Yoast SEO (or other Open Graph Plugin) Installed

We use Yoast WordPress SEO to handle our Open Graph information, and our Open Graph images stopped working a few months ago for unknown reasons.

To get the images to work again, we had to add another plugin, Facebook Open Graph, Google+ and Twitter Card Tags. We have previously used this plugin in conjunction with the Yoast SEO plugin with no problem. We still haven't totally figured out what happened.

Always check that plugins are up to date: At one point, our Open Graph information would not refresh at the Facebook Debugger. I checked and we were not running the latest version of Yoast SEO. Once the Yoast SEO plugin was updated, the Open Graph information refreshed at the Facebook debugger....so always check that your plugins are up to date.

Best Practices Going Forward and Why Open Graph Info Matters

Well Formatted Social Media Posts Earn More Engagement

When you share a post on Facebook, if it is accompanied by a well formatted Open Graph image and description, it is far more likely to be clicked and shared by users. Make sure you are putting your best foot forward by specifying what these should be.

Your Business Will Appear More Polished on Social Media

If you are taking the time to keep up with your business blog and content marketing, don't waste the effort by not paying attention to what gets published on social media channels.

If you write an awesome post, the next step in the process is to promote that post on social media. You dutifully share the post on Facebook expecting it to look like this:

....and instead, you get something like this...

Not only will this type of social post earn less engagement than a well-formatted one, it looks less professional.

So, always make sure you set your Open Graph tags for every piece of content you publish on your site. That means a little extra care needs to be taken creating an effective image, description and title, but it is worth the effort.

If your website is built using WordPress, read our guide on how to set Open Graph Tags in WordPress