Trouble Shooting Open Graphs with ChatGPT

what is an open graph preview?

The Open Graph protocol is a standard established by Facebook that allows any webpage to become a rich object in a social graph. This can be used to enhance the way links appear when shared on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, among others.

An Open Graph preview is a snapshot or summary of a webpage that appears when a link is shared on social media platforms. This typically includes a title, description, and an image. These details are defined within the metadata of the webpage by including specific Open Graph tags.

The idea is to provide a summary or a preview of the content before the user decides to click on the link. It's also useful for improving visibility and engagement on social media platforms, as posts with images and descriptions tend to receive more clicks.

For instance, if you have a blog post titled "The Ultimate Guide to Gardening", you could set up Open Graph tags so that whenever this link is shared on social media, it appears with the title, a brief description like "Everything you need to know about gardening", and an image related to gardening.

To implement this, Open Graph meta tags are added to the head section of the HTML of a webpage. Here are examples of the basic Open Graph tags:

<meta property="og:title" content="The Ultimate Guide to Gardening" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Everything you need to know about gardening" />
<meta property="og:image" content="URL_TO_YOUR_IMAGE" />
<meta property="og:url" content="URL_TO_YOUR_WEBPAGE" />
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />

In this example, og:title sets the title that will be displayed, og:description sets the description, og:image sets the image, og:url provides the canonical URL, and og:type defines the type of object, which can be various types like "article", "video", etc. Depending on the platform and specific use case, more tags may be used to provide additional information.

What can i do if the image is not appearing correctly on Twitter?

If the image from your website is not appearing correctly when a link is shared on Twitter, it could be due to several reasons. Here are a few things you can check and steps you can take to resolve the issue:

1. Check Your Twitter Card Meta Tags: Twitter uses its own meta tags for link previews, known as Twitter Cards. While Twitter will fall back on Open Graph tags if Twitter Card tags are not present, it's generally best practice to include Twitter Card tags as well. Make sure they're properly implemented on your website. A typical Twitter Card tag setup might look like this:

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@username">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Page Title">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Page Description">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="http://www.example.com/image.jpg">

2. Check Your Image Size: Twitter has specific requirements for the image size for link previews. As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, for a summary_large_image card, Twitter recommends a minimum size of 300x157 pixels and a maximum size of 4096x4096 pixels. Images should be no more than 5MB in size.

3. Clear Twitter's Cache: Twitter caches link preview images for a period of time. If you've recently changed the image, it may not appear until Twitter's cache is cleared. You can force Twitter to clear its cache by entering your URL into Twitter's Card Validator tool.

4. Check for SSL Certificate Issues: If your website uses HTTPS (as it should), make sure your SSL certificate is correctly installed and there are no issues. Sometimes, issues with the certificate can cause problems with Twitter displaying images.

5. Wait for Propagation: If you've just updated your Twitter Card or Open Graph tags, there may be a delay before changes are visible when the link is shared. You may need to wait a while for changes to propagate.

When using are there other valid entries for this?

Yes, there are several types of Twitter Cards that you can specify using the twitter:card meta tag. The type of card determines how your content is displayed on Twitter. As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, here are the main types:

1. Summary Card (summary): This is the default card type, which includes a title, description, thumbnail image, and Twitter account attribution. This card is designed to give the reader a preview of the content before clicking through to your website.

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary" />

2. Summary Card with Large Image (summary_large_image): Similar to the Summary Card, but with a larger image.

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />

3. Player Card (player): This card provides rich media experiences and is designed for video and audio content. The Player Card can embed video or audio directly into a Tweet linked to your content.

<meta name="twitter:card" content="player" />

4. App Card (app): This card is designed to allow for a two-click download of an app and to display app attributes such as the app name, icon, description, and other details like the rating or price.

<meta name="twitter:card" content="app" />

Each card type has a different set of meta tags associated with it, to provide the appropriate information for that card type. You can find more details in Twitter's Card documentation.