Link preview fix guides
Your link shows no image, the wrong title or an old card? Pick the app or site builder below. Each guide covers the causes, the tags, the image rules and how to force a refresh.
Apps and platforms
LinkedIn link preview not working or not updating
LinkedIn builds the card from four og: tags and keeps a cached copy. Fix the tags, then make LinkedIn fetch the page again with Post Inspector.
Facebook link preview not showing or not updating
Facebook reads Open Graph tags with its own crawler and caches the result for up to 30 days. Fix the tags and image, then scrape the URL again.
WhatsApp link preview not working or not showing
WhatsApp has strict limits: the head must sit in the first 300 KB of HTML and the image must be under 600 KB. Miss one and you get a small preview or none.
iMessage link preview not working or showing a gray bubble
Messages fetches the page itself and doesn’t run JavaScript. Without og:image and a good icon you get the plain gray bubble with only a title.
Slack link preview not working or not updating
Slack unfurls links with a bot that reads oEmbed, Open Graph and Twitter Card tags. Results are cached across Slack for about 30 minutes.
Discord embed not showing or not updating
Discord fetches the page once, reads the tags in the server HTML and caches the embed for about 30 minutes. It never runs your JavaScript.
X (Twitter) card not showing or not updating
X builds the card from twitter: tags, falling back to og: tags. There is no longer a validator that refreshes the cache, so the fix is good tags plus a fresh URL.
Site builders and frameworks
Next.js Open Graph image not working
Most Next.js preview bugs come from the Metadata API: a missing metadataBase, an openGraph object that replaces the parent one, or an image file over the limit.
WordPress OG image not showing when you share a post
On WordPress the Open Graph tags come from an SEO plugin or the theme. Two sources fighting, a cached page or a small image are the usual causes.
Shopify social sharing image not working
Shopify chooses the share image in a fixed order: theme code, then theme settings, then the image in Preferences. Uploading to the wrong place is the most common cause.
Webflow Open Graph image not working
Webflow sets Open Graph per page, never globally. CMS template pages need an Image field, and every image in that collection must share the same size.
Framer social preview not updating
Framer sets a site-wide social preview, page overrides and per-item CMS images. If the new image is live but the old one still shows, the platform’s cache is the cause.
Fix the page, then the cache
Every guide follows the same order. Get the tags and image right on your page first. Only then make the app fetch it again, or it will save the broken version a second time.
Check the tags first
Most broken previews come from a missing og:image, a relative image URL or tags added by JavaScript. Discord and iMessage don’t run JavaScript, so the tags have to be in the HTML the server sends.
Check the image
Use a 1200 x 630 px JPG or PNG under 5 MB with an absolute https:// URL. That meets the minimum size of every app in these guides. WhatsApp also needs it under 600 KB.
Then clear the cache
Each app keeps its own copy of your preview. Fixing the page doesn’t change it until the app fetches the page again.
Link preview FAQ
Why is my link preview not showing?
The app either can’t read your tags or is still showing a copy it saved earlier. Check what your page serves now with the meta tag checker. If the tags are right, the app needs to fetch the page again.
Which tags do most apps read?
og:title, og:description, og:image and og:url cover LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, iMessage, Slack and Discord. X reads twitter:card first and falls back to the og: tags for the rest.
How do I make an app fetch my page again?
LinkedIn has Post Inspector and Facebook has the Sharing Debugger. Most other apps have no refresh tool, so you share a URL they haven’t seen, like the same link with ?v=2 added.