How to Update Incorrect Open Graph Featured Images and Other Metadata on Facebook and LinkedIn

Have you ever updated a WordPress blog post’s featured image, only to find social media platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook still displaying the old image in their previews? This common issue occurs because social media platforms rely on Open Graph tags, which don’t always update immediately, even after you’ve changed your featured image.

What are Open Graph tags?

Open Graph tags (or OG tags) are HTML metadata used to control how URLs are displayed when shared on social media platforms. They help determine how a shared link’s preview looks, specifying elements like the featured image, title, description, and URL.

Here’s a quick 3-step guide for WordPress to ensure your Open Graph tags display correctly:

Step 1: Verify Your SEO Plugin’s Social Setting

First, check your WordPress site’s SEO plugin (such as Yoast or Rank Math). Even if you’ve updated the featured image directly in your blog post, your SEO plugin might still hold the outdated image.

  • Log in to your website and navigate to the post with the issue.
  • Open your SEO plugin’s social settings tab for that post.
  • Confirm the social image matches your updated featured image. If not, replace it with the correct image, update the settings, and clear your site cache.

Now, check your post preview on a social media site again and see if that fixed your issue. If not, proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Force Platforms to Re-crawl Your Post

Social media platforms cache open graph data, meaning updates might not appear instantly. To expedite this process, you can manually prompt the platforms to recrawl your post.

For Facebook:

  • Visit the Facebook Sharing Debugger.
  • Enter your post URL and click “Debug” to fetch the latest data.
  • If the outdated image still appears, click “Scrape Again” to force Facebook to update the cached content.

For LinkedIn:

  • Visit LinkedIn’s Post Inspector tool.
  • Enter your URL and click “Inspect.”
  • LinkedIn will immediately recrawl your page and show the updated preview.

Here is a list of the most popular official social media platform debugging tools:

Step 3: Verify the Updated Image

After following these steps, refresh your browser with a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R). Your new featured image should now appear in social media previews.

A Quick Recap on Updating Open Graph Tags:

  • Check your SEO plugin’s social settings and update the image if necessary.
  • Prompt social media platforms to re-crawl your content via their debugging tools.
  • Refresh your browser to confirm the new Open Graph image is displaying correctly.
  • This process is the same for the post’s title and meta description if they are not updating properly on social media platforms.

Following this process will consistently ensure your social media previews reflect your latest content updates.

If you need help with your business’s SEO or social media campaigns, book a free consultation with Digital Dynamo.