What is Open Graph?
Open Graph is a set of meta tags that tells apps how to show your page when someone shares the link. The tags give the title, the description, the image and the address that appear in the preview card.
Facebook made the protocol in 2010. Today LinkedIn, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, iMessage and most chat apps read it. X reads its own twitter: tags first and falls back to the Open Graph tags.
How do I check Open Graph tags on localhost or a staging site?
Use a bookmarklet. Online preview tools fetch your page from their own servers, so they cannot reach localhost, a staging site behind a password or a page behind a login. The OG check bookmarklet runs in your own browser tab, reads the tags of the page you have open and sends them straight to this tool.
The tags travel in the part of the address after the # sign, which browsers never send to a server. Nothing about your unreleased page leaves your device, and you can fix the share card before the page goes live.
The bookmarklet also sees tags that JavaScript adds after the page loads. The share bots of X, LinkedIn, Slack and Facebook mostly read the HTML your server sends and do not run JavaScript. If a tag shows with the bookmarklet but not in the URL check, render that tag on the server.
Three ways to check a page with this tool| What you need to check | URL check | Bookmarklet | Paste HTML |
|---|
| A public page | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| localhost or a preview deploy | No | Yes | Yes |
| Staging behind a password or VPN | No | Yes | Yes |
| A page behind a login | No | Yes | Yes |
| Tags added by JavaScript | No | Yes | Only if you copy them |
| Passes through a server | Ours, head tags only | No | No |
| Effort | Type the address | One click | Copy and paste the source |
As of October 2026 · Source: How this tool works
Which meta tags does every page need?
Every page needs a title tag, a meta description, og:title, og:description, og:image, og:url and twitter:card. With these seven, every major app can show a full preview with a large image.
Add a canonical link so search engines know the main address, and a favicon link so Google can show your icon. og:image must be an absolute https URL, and 1200 x 630 pixels is the safe size.
You can add og:type, og:site_name and the og:image width and height too. They are optional, but the width and height help some apps show the image on the first share.
Title and description limits by platform (approximate, characters shown before the cut)| Platform | Title shown | Description shown |
|---|
| Google search | About 60 (about 600 px wide) | About 155 to 160 |
| X large card | About 70, over the image | Usually not shown |
| LinkedIn | About 70, up to 2 lines | Usually not shown |
| Facebook | About 60 to 90, up to 2 lines | About 1 line, often hidden |
| Slack | Full title, 1 to 2 lines | About 3 lines |
As of October 2026 · Source: BlockSnap tests of each app. Limits depend on screen width and change often.
Why do link previews look different in each app?
Each app reads the same tags but draws its own card, with its own crop, font and text limits. Each app also caches the preview the first time someone shares the link, so a change to your tags does not show at once.
To refresh the cache, paste the URL into the Facebook Sharing Debugger and choose Scrape Again, or into the LinkedIn Post Inspector. X no longer has a card validator page, so post the link in a draft or add a query string such as ?v=2 to get a fresh preview.
Slack and Discord cache unfurls for a while too. A new query string on the URL forces a new fetch in most apps.