Why does my link preview show an old image or title?

Platforms cache link metadata and images, so a preview can keep showing what was stored earlier. Each platform decides when to refresh, and most provide a debugging or re-scrape option.

Why is there no preview at all?

The platform may not be able to fetch the page (login, 403, bot protection, errors, robots rules), the tags may be missing from the HTML it receives, or the URL may redirect somewhere unexpected.

Why is the preview different on different platforms?

Each platform has its own fallbacks, crops images differently and applies its own rules, so the same tags can produce different cards.

Can a tool tell me exactly what Facebook or LinkedIn will show?

No tool outside the platform can. An analyzer can show what your server delivers and how the tags could be interpreted. Confirm important links in each platform's own tools.

SEO / Web

Published October 6, 20267 min read

Why Is My Link Preview Not Showing Correctly?

Wrong title, old image or no card: how to tell metadata, access and caching problems apart.

A preview can fail in three different ways, and the right fix depends on which one you are dealing with. Either the platform could not read your metadata, or it read the wrong metadata, or it is showing an older copy of correct metadata. Sorting out which is the whole job.

Step 1: look at what the server delivers

Fetch the page the way a crawler would: from outside your network, without cookies, reading the HTML without running scripts. The Open Graph & Social Preview Analyzer does exactly this and shows the final URL, the HTTP status, every tag it found and the preview that results. If the tags you expect are not there, the platform cannot see them either.

Step 2: sort the symptom

Symptom	Likely category	Where to look
No card at all	Access or fetch problem	HTTP status, login, bot protection, robots.txt
Card with a bare URL or generic text	Missing tags	Open Graph table, JavaScript-rendered metadata
Wrong title or description	Wrong or conflicting tags	Duplicates, og:title vs HTML title, template variables
No image or the wrong image	Image problem	Image analysis, multiple og:image order
Right data in the analyzer, old data on the platform	Platform cache	Re-scrape and file names
The card links to a different page	Redirects or og:url	Redirect chain, canonical, og:url

Access problems

If the page answers 401 or 403, shows a login page or a bot-challenge page, or fails to load for automated requests, crawlers see that instead of your content. Check firewall and bot-protection rules, and confirm that the crawlers of the platforms you care about are allowed. An analyzer that makes one request with a neutral user agent cannot tell how a specific platform's crawler is treated, so it reports possible causes rather than certainties. Also check robots.txt: some crawlers honor it, and a disallowed page or image directory can leave a link with no preview.

Missing or misplaced tags

Tags that a script adds in the browser are invisible to crawlers that do not run JavaScript. Render them on the server.
Tags placed in the page body, or after a stray element that closes the head, may be skipped.
A single-page app may serve one generic HTML shell for every URL, so every page shares the same tags.

Conflicting tags

Two sources printing different og:title or og:description values, a stale template variable, or an og:url copied from another page all produce confusing cards. Look for duplicates and for values that do not match the page. See Open Graph meta tags explained.

Redirects and URL identity

Crawlers follow redirects, so a short link, a tracking link or an http address that redirects can end at a different page than you expect. The card is built from the final page. Also check that og:url and the canonical URL agree with each other (see canonical URL vs og:url); the Redirect Chain Analyzer shows where a URL ends up.

Platform caching

Once the tags are correct, an old preview is almost always a cache. Platforms store link metadata and images so that they need not fetch them on every share, and when they refresh is up to them. Practical steps: change the image's file name rather than overwriting the file, use the platform's own debugging tool or re-scrape option where one exists, and give it time. How to test Open Graph tags lists the usual tools.

Do not assume a refresh mechanism

Platforms change how and whether you can force a refresh. Check the current documentation for the platform in question instead of relying on advice from older articles.

A short routine

Analyze the URL and read the status, final URL and issues list.
Fix missing, conflicting or inaccessible items, starting with the critical ones.
Re-analyze to confirm the delivered HTML is right.
Ask each platform to re-read the page, then wait for the cache.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my link preview show an old image or title?: Platforms cache link metadata and images, so a preview can keep showing what was stored earlier. Each platform decides when to refresh, and most provide a debugging or re-scrape option.
Why is there no preview at all?: The platform may not be able to fetch the page (login, 403, bot protection, errors, robots rules), the tags may be missing from the HTML it receives, or the URL may redirect somewhere unexpected.
Why is the preview different on different platforms?: Each platform has its own fallbacks, crops images differently and applies its own rules, so the same tags can produce different cards.
Can a tool tell me exactly what Facebook or LinkedIn will show?: No tool outside the platform can. An analyzer can show what your server delivers and how the tags could be interpreted. Confirm important links in each platform's own tools.