Short answer: Open Graph tags are meta tags in the head of a page that tell Facebook and other platforms which title, description and image to show when someone shares your link. The protocol asks for four on every page: og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url. Without them, Facebook’s crawler makes its best guess.
The main Open Graph tags
| Tag | What it holds | What Meta or the protocol asks |
|---|---|---|
og:title | The title of the page | No branding such as your site name |
og:description | A short description | Shown below the title on Facebook |
og:image | The URL of the preview image | A new URL for a new image |
og:url | The canonical URL | No session or tracking parameters |
og:type | The type of content | website if you leave it out |
og:image:alt | A description of the image | Add it whenever the page has og:image |
Each tag is a meta element with a property and a content value, such as <meta property="og:title" content="The Rock" />. The protocol builds on RDFa, so the tags go in the head of the page.
From “The Open Graph protocol” and Meta for Developers, “A Guide to Sharing for Webmasters”, read November 3, 2026.
How Facebook reads your page
Meta says most content reaches Facebook as a shared link, so Open Graph tags are how you control what that post looks like. Without them, its crawler uses internal rules to guess the title, the description and the image.
Meta adds that your server must use gzip and deflate encodings for its crawler to share your page correctly.
The image, its size and its alt text
Meta asks you to declare og:image:width and og:image:height, so the image loads properly the first time someone shares the page. The protocol adds that a page with og:image should also have og:image:alt, a description of what the image shows, not a caption.
For og:image:type, Meta’s guide lists JPEG, GIF and PNG. Our guide to alt text covers how to describe an image.
How to set up Open Graph tags
- Write a share title without your site name, and a short description of the page.
- Pick an image for each page and note its width and height.
- Add og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url to the head, or fill in your SEO plugin’s social fields.
- Add og:description, og:image:width, og:image:height and og:image:alt.
- Point og:url to the page’s canonical address, without tracking parameters.
- Paste the URL into Meta’s Sharing Debugger to see which tags its crawler reads.
- When you replace an image, give it a new URL so Facebook doesn’t keep showing the old one.
What our own pages send
Each of our guides has its own share image, 1200 by 630 pixels, with its width, height and alt text declared. Each also declares og:type article and a large-image card for X. Our home page uses a 1800 by 945 image instead.
Until 12:56 AM on November 3, our og:title ended in “| Feedback Studios”, the way our page titles do. Meta asks for the title without the site name, so we removed it from the share tags. og:site_name still names us, and the title in the browser tab didn’t change.
Our share images are WebP files, a type Meta’s guide doesn’t list. Our Spanish pages declare og:locale es_ES, and none of our pages declares og:locale:alternate yet.
Before you share a page
- The page has og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url.
- The share title doesn’t repeat your site name.
- The image declares its width, height and alt text.
- og:url is the canonical address, without parameters.
- A new image has a new URL.
- The Sharing Debugger shows no errors or warnings.
RememberFour tags decide a link preview: og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url. Give each page its own image, declare its size and test the link in the Sharing Debugger before you share it.
If you want a site whose pages look right when people share them, see our web design service.
Quick answers about Open Graph tags
What happens if a page has no Open Graph tags?
Facebook’s crawler makes a best guess at the title, description and preview image, using its own internal rules. Meta asks you to set that information explicitly with Open Graph tags, so your posts look the way you want.
Why does Facebook still show my old image?
Facebook caches images by their URL and won’t update one unless the URL changes. Upload the new image under a new address, then run the link through the Sharing Debugger, which also triggers a fresh scrape of the page.
Should og:title include my brand name?
No. Meta asks for the title of the article without branding such as the site name. The Open Graph protocol has a separate tag for that, og:site_name, which names the larger site the page belongs to.
What should og:url point to?
The canonical URL of the page, without session variables, user parameters or counters. Meta adds up likes and shares at that URL, so every version of the page should point to the same address.
What does og:type change?
It tells Facebook the type of content, and Meta says it affects how the content shows in Feed. Without it, the type is website. A blog post or a guide usually uses article, and each URL can have only one type.
Sources
Read on November 3, 2026. The Open Graph protocol. Meta for Developers: A Guide to Sharing for Webmasters. Our own case: the Open Graph tags of our pages before and after our change, on November 3, 2026.