T.V
- Have you ever shared a URL and found that the Facebook link preview isn’t working properly? That can happen when sharing a Qualifio campaign too.
Crappy link previews
Truth be told, there are many issues you can have with the Facebook link preview. You've probably had some of these happen to you too: doesn't show at all, shows old information you've since updated, doesn't show an image (even though you've uploaded one in your page's meta).
Can't I just edit the information in the preview before I hit publish?
No. Unfortunately, as part of their efforts to stop the spread of misinformation and false news on their platform, Facebook doesn't allow this anymore.
> Read: How Qualifio adapts to Facebook's anti-cloaking measures
So, for those who are having issues with Facebook link previews...
1. Check your meta description
Again, check that your title, description and image are accurate and that your image has the right dimensions for Facebook. (More info about that here.)
2. Force Facebook to clear the cache
You might not be seeing the Facebook link preview you want because the info has been cached by Facebook. (Facebook saves the info from URLs and pages that have already been shared, for better performance.) So you just may need to force Facebook to clear the cache.
1. Go to the Facebook Debugger Tool;
2. Copy and paste the URL you're having troubles with into the tool and click debug;
3. The debugger tool will inevitably show a bunch of techy diagnostics, but in most cases, you can just ignore those. We’re just interested in clearing the cache and letting it work its magic ;-)
4. If you want to update the info you're seeing, simply click Scrape again.
Pro tip: Be careful to do this manip for both "http://" and "https://" URLs, as Facebook has a different cache for each of those.
3. What to do if you notice the image is missing in a post that's already been published to your Facebook Page
You might have been confronted with this image issue before:
Sometimes the image will appear correctly in the link preview when you write a new post but won't display later in your News Feed. This is sort of a new, totally random Facebook, and unfortunately, there is no known Facebook fix deployed at this time.
What we noticed works in most cases though is to refresh to force Facebook to clear the cache (see Step 2), then additionally follow the steps below:
- Go to Publishing Tools on your Facebook Page;
- Under Published Posts, find your post and click on it;
- Click ...
- Hit Refresh share attachment;
- A pop-up window should open - if the new information is good for you, click Save.
