Ever had this happen to you? You write a great blog post, publish it, and you want to share it with everyone you know. So you go to Facebook, paste the URL into the share box…. and Facebook pulls up some random image and a description that has nothing to do with your latest post?
Yep, it’s happened to me, too.
What causes this? I’m no Facebook expert, and from what I’ve read, this could be caused by a couple of things…but if the problem has just started, and Facebook used to pull the correct info, then 9 times out of 10 the cause of the problem is Facebook’s cache.
Long story short & sweet – they have outdated information about the content on your site, and instead of pulling new information when you enter that link, they are pulling information from their cache of your site, which is likely out of date.
Who cares what causes it, How do you FIX IT? Glad you asked! As it happens, you can get Facebook to refresh it’s cache of your site by using the Facebook “Linter” tool, which will direct Facebook to re-crawl the url that you enter. Here’s how to do it:
Visit Facebook’s Debugger: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
Enter the URL of the page that Facebook is not sharing correctly, and hit “debug”.
Here’s what your results should look like: ignore the yellow warning areas – we’ll talk about those in another post! The important part is at the bottom: Check to make sure that the “Object Properties” listed there are the thumbnail and description of the url you entered above. If they are, everything should be fixed up! Go try to share the link on Facebook now, and it should work as expected!
Ever experienced this? Did this solve your problem? Got any more questions for me, about WordPress, Facebook, or anything else?
28 Comments
So much of what FB does automatically is such a mystery (and often frustrating). Thanks for clearing this up!
Facebook is totally insane.
Sweet! Thanks for the tip, Laird!
Anytime, Kim!
Saw your comment “Facebook is totally insane” as I was scrolling back to the top of the page. On my way by, your “Join me on Facebook” gadget caught my eye.
Made me giggle…
lol…that probably means I’m insane, too….
Nah, not you…
ha! Right. Not me. Definitely Sane. 100%.
I was having this problem and it was driving me nuts. After trying numerous things and pulling my hair out, I thought our resident genius, Laird, could help me out, and she did. This is what she suggested. It worked. Hair now growing back in again. Thanks again, Laird.
Sure thing, Richard!
Have you tried out the new Facebook plugin for WordPress?
I haven’t! Did they release an official one? One of the facebook plugins I have tried is called “Add Facebook Share Thumbnail + Meta” which seems to work pretty well, but if facebook has made their own plugin, I’d love to try it out!
Thanks, Laird. This is really helpful. I’ve been vexed by Facebook pulling up old pictures from posts I wrote months ago. You explain how to fix the problem so well–and I usually get lost and overwhelmed with stuff like this.
Thanks again!
Rebecca
Facebook can definitely be vexing! Thank you for commenting!
Hi, great tips for you tech savvy folks, but for us non techies, here’s what I do. I post the link, select “no thumbnail* then go up and select photo/video. This lets me select whatever picture I want.
lol. I guess there is always more than one way to skin the (proverbial) cat!
Thank you for this, Laird.
Going to bookmark this. I hate facebook with a passion and wordpress is just as bad. I hate being FORCED to do stuff. Found myself in Spam Jail due to too many tags on my blog posts on wordpress. Should say too many irrelevant to the post tags. Sigh.
Oh my! WordPress.com, I’m assuming? Maybe you should go to self hosting! WordPress (the software…ie, WordPress.org) is AWESOME. WordPress.com provides a great service, but I’m not a fan of the restrictions…and Spam Jail doesn’t sound like any fun at all! Did they feed you in there?
Yep, WordPress.com. We’ve been ‘thinking’ about moving to .org. But I’ll need to gird my loins and take a pill before I tackle it. Too busy writing, Laird.
And they did feed me!
gird your loins…*snort*
Well, you know where I am if you need any help!
I promise it is not as complicated as it sounds. And it is soooooooooooo worth it.
I’ve seen this happen to a few people recently. I guess I’m lucky that it hasn’t happened to me. At least I know where to turn should it happen in the future.
Definitely worth bookmarking the debugger just in case! Facebook is so…unpredictable…
solved! thank you so much!
You are so welcome!
Thank you SO much for this post. I’ve been trying to figure out the Facebook “mystery” thumbnail issue and it was starting to really annoy me! This worked like a charm.
I’m glad it worked!
Thanks for commenting!
I tried this… and It didn’t help. D: Am I doing it wrong. I went to the link here: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
tyuped in my URL here: http://caughtinasnyderwebb.blogspot.com/
and it still shows random old images instead of the images from that particular post. Did I do it wrong?
Hi! Did you put in the specific url for the post, or just http://caughtinasnyderwebb.blogspot.com/
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