When you share a website link on Facebook, the preview card usually includes an image, title, and description. Facebook gets those details from information the website supplies, including a field called og:image, which points to the image for the preview.
If the image is missing or wrong, check the page’s sharing information, refresh Facebook’s saved copy of the link, and make sure Facebook can access the page and image. For WordPress publishers, PressQueue can create a social image and use it as the page’s preview image.
Refresh Facebook’s saved preview
Start with Meta’s Sharing Debugger. It checks the link and requests updated information from the page. This refresh helps when Facebook has saved an older preview, but it cannot add missing image information to your website or unblock an inaccessible image.
- Open Meta’s Sharing Debugger and enter the page URL, not the image URL.
- Select Debug and review the preview and any warnings.
- Select Scrape Again to ask Facebook to check the page again.
- If the image is still missing or wrong, inspect the website’s sharing settings before testing again.
Then share the link in a new post to check the result. Refreshing Facebook’s saved information does not guarantee that an older post will update; Squarespace’s troubleshooting guidance recommends resharing when needed.
Check the image the page provides
The photo shown in the article is not always the image Facebook uses. The website needs to identify the intended preview image in its Open Graph metadata, a set of page details used when links are shared. The Open Graph protocol defines og:image as the property that supplies the image URL.
If you manage the site, check its social-sharing settings for the specific post. A featured image and a social-sharing image can be different, and one setting may take priority over the other. For example, Yoast documents how its image-selection rules determine which image it publishes.
Aim for a wide image about 1200 × 630 pixels. Wix’s image guidance gives this size and an 8 MB file-size limit; it also lists smaller minimum dimensions. Those figures are guidance, not proof that every image outside that exact size will fail. JPG or PNG is a straightforward format to test.
If you use a WordPress SEO plugin, confirm that Open Graph sharing is enabled and that the post’s social image is set. WordPress.com says it adds Open Graph tags automatically, but its image-selection guidance applies to WordPress.com; self-hosted WordPress sites depend on their own theme and plugin settings. See WordPress.com’s thumbnail guidance for its behavior.
Make sure Facebook can reach the page and image
Facebook uses software called a link-preview crawler to visit the page and image. It must be able to request both. A password prompt or firewall challenge can prevent it from retrieving the image. An access restriction can also block retrieval. Cloudflare’s troubleshooting guidance identifies security challenges and custom blocking rules as possible causes. Rank Math also notes that a 403 Forbidden response from the image address can stop the image from loading.
Check whether the image URL opens in a private browser window and whether your hosting or security settings block automated requests. If your site uses a content delivery network, a service that stores copies of site files for delivery, clear its cache after changing the image or metadata. Then ask Facebook to check the link again. Avoid disabling security protections broadly; find the specific rule or restriction affecting access.
Create WordPress social images with PressQueue
PressQueue is a free, open-source WordPress plugin that shares WordPress posts to social networks through Buffer. Its social-image feature can also publish the generated image as the page’s og:image, so the same image appears when someone shares the link. It works with Yoast SEO, Rank Math, The SEO Framework, and Jetpack; without an SEO plugin, PressQueue prints the tags itself. An image set for an individual post in an SEO plugin takes priority.
To set it up, download pressqueue.zip from the PressQueue download page, then go to Plugins > Add Plugin > Upload Plugin in WordPress. Connect it with a personal Buffer API key, a code that lets PressQueue connect to Buffer. Find the key in your Buffer settings, then choose the image style under Settings > Social images. You can select a background, font, text color, alignment, and site name. You can also preview the design. PressQueue creates each image when a post first needs one and redraws it when the title or style changes.
The feature requires PHP’s GD image library with FreeType font support, which lets PressQueue draw text on images. Most hosts provide GD with FreeType support. Without it, posts still go out with text and a link, but PressQueue cannot generate the image. PressQueue sends posts through Buffer, so you also need a Buffer account with your social accounts added.
If you do not manage the website
You can use the Sharing Debugger to see what Facebook reads, but changing the page’s og:image requires access to the website or help from its owner. Send the owner the page URL and explain that the preview image needs to be set or corrected.
To publish before the page is fixed, attach an image to your Facebook post and include the link in the text. That creates an image post with a URL, rather than repairing the link-preview card; attached images are not necessarily clickable links to the page, as Buffer explains.