When you paste a URL into Slack, iMessage, LinkedIn, or Facebook, the Open Graph tags on your page decide the preview image. Nail the asset once, version it with your campaigns, and flush caches when you ship updates.
Baseline dimensions
1200 × 630 px is the industry default for og:image-wide enough for high-DPI screens,
balanced for most social scrapers. Keep text inside the center ~90% width to avoid odd crops in messengers.
Minimum viable tag set
og:titleog:descriptionog:imageog:urltwitter:card(oftensummary_large_image)
Laravel apps usually set these in a layout blade-mirror what you already do on this site’s <x-website.layout> patterns.
Design guidance
- Readable at thumbnail size-thin fonts disappear.
- Avoid busy photos behind text-add a translucent scrim if needed.
- Localized pages need localized OG images when languages differ materially.
Debugging stale previews
After deploy:
- Use Meta’s sharing debugger for Facebook/Instagram-class previews.
- Use LinkedIn Post Inspector for LinkedIn.
- Validate X cards via X’s card validator when available to your account.
Connect to social creative
Link preview art should visually match the campaign running in LinkedIn image posts or Facebook brand surfaces so users trust the click.
Frequently asked questions
- What size should an Open Graph (OG) image be?
- A widely supported baseline is 1200×630 pixels (about 1.91:1). Always test previews in Facebook Sharing Debugger and LinkedIn Post Inspector because caches linger.
- Is OG image the same as Twitter’s card image?
- Often you can reuse one asset, but Twitter/X supports card tags that may override og:image. Define twitter:image when you need a different crop.
- Why is my link preview stale?
- Platforms cache OG tags. After changing meta tags, use each network’s debugger tool to scrape fresh metadata.
- Does OG image affect Google SEO directly?
- It indirectly affects click-through from search/social previews. Primary ranking still depends on content quality, structure, and backlinks-not only preview pixels.