When you share a WordPress link on Facebook or LinkedIn and the preview shows the wrong image, title, or no image at all, the problem is almost always incorrect or missing Open Graph meta tags. Here is how to diagnose and fix them.
Step 1: Check Your Current Open Graph Tags
View the page source (Ctrl+U in Chrome) and search for “og:”. You should see tags like:
<meta property="og:title" content="Your Page Title" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Your page description" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://yourdomain.com/image.jpg" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://yourdomain.com/page/" />If these are missing, your SEO plugin Open Graph settings may be disabled. If they are present but wrong, the settings need updating.
Enabling Open Graph in Rank Math
Go to Rank Math, then General Settings, then Social Metadata. Ensure Open Graph Metadata is turned on. Check each social network tab to configure defaults. Under Twitter, also ensure Twitter Cards is enabled — Twitter reads its own tags but falls back to og: tags if twitter: tags are absent.
Enabling Open Graph in Yoast SEO
Go to Yoast SEO, then Social, then Facebook tab. Enable Add Open Graph meta data. Set a default image for pages that do not have a featured image.
Setting a Default Open Graph Image
Pages without a featured image have no og:image by default. Set a site-wide fallback in your SEO plugin. In Rank Math, go to Titles and Meta, then Global Meta and set a default image. In Yoast SEO, go to Social, then Facebook and upload a default image. Use an image of at least 1200x630px in JPEG or PNG format.
Fixing the Facebook Cache
Facebook caches Open Graph data aggressively. After fixing your tags, Facebook may still show old data for hours or days. To force a cache refresh:
- Go to developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
- Enter the URL you want to refresh.
- Click Debug.
- Review the detected Open Graph properties.
- Click Scrape Again to force a fresh fetch.
- Verify the updated data appears in the preview.
New shares after the rescrape will use the updated data. Existing shares that Facebook has already rendered are not retroactively updated.
Fixing the LinkedIn Cache
LinkedIn has its own post inspector at linkedin.com/post-inspector. Enter your URL and click Inspect to force LinkedIn to re-fetch your page metadata. Use this after fixing og: tags to refresh the LinkedIn preview cache.
Fixing Duplicate Open Graph Tags
If you see duplicate og: tags in your page source, two plugins are both generating Open Graph output. Go to each Open Graph-capable plugin (SEO plugin, Open Graph plugin, social sharing plugin) and check which one is outputting the tags. Disable the duplicate source. Most SEO plugins have a toggle under Social settings to disable their Open Graph output if another tool is handling it.
Per-Page Custom Open Graph Image
For important pages where you want a specific image in social shares rather than the default, edit the page and find the Social tab in your SEO plugin’s meta box below the editor. Upload a custom og:image for that specific page. This overrides the featured image and the default fallback for social shares of that URL.
For full social meta setup including Open Graph, Twitter Cards, and WhatsApp preview configuration across a complex site, a WordPress developer can audit and configure all social metadata correctly.