Social Preview Checker — Test Your Link on Every Platform at Once

Sharing the same link on five platforms means five different preview renderers reading your meta tags and deciding how to display them. Each platform has different image size requirements, different character limits, and different caching behavior.

A social preview checker reads your page HTML once and shows you how the preview card will look across all major platforms. One check, all platforms, before any share goes live.

Here is how to use it and what each platform actually needs from your Open Graph tags.

Why Previews Look Different on Each Platform

Every platform reads the same Open Graph meta tags, but they interpret and display them differently. Facebook shows a large banner image in the news feed. LinkedIn shows a smaller card with text beside the thumbnail. Twitter shows either a small square or a full-width image depending on which card type you set. Discord shows a compact embed. WhatsApp shows a small thumbnail beside text in the chat.

The same set of OG tags can look great on one platform and broken on another. The most common culprits:

• Image aspect ratio — Facebook prefers 1.91:1 (1200x630). Twitter crops images to 2:1 for large cards. Instagram and Discord crop to a square.
• Description length — Facebook shows up to 300 characters. LinkedIn shows far less before truncating. Twitter wraps at about 200 characters.
• Card type — Twitter has two preview modes. Without the twitter:card tag set to summary_large_image, you get a small thumbnail instead of a full-width image.

Running a social preview checker lets you see all of these variations before committing to a share.

How to Test Your Link Across All Platforms

The fastest method is the HTML paste approach.

1. Open your page in a browser and press Ctrl+U (or Cmd+U on Mac) to view page source
2. Select all and copy
3. Paste into the checker's HTML tab and click Check Tags

The checker displays two rendered preview cards side by side: one for Facebook/LinkedIn and one for Twitter/X. It also shows a structured breakdown of every OG and Twitter Card tag it found, plus a recommendations list for anything that is missing or suboptimal.

Why HTML paste is more reliable than URL input

URL-based checks depend on the target site allowing cross-origin requests. Many sites block these requests for security reasons, especially CDN-served sites and sites behind Cloudflare's browser integrity check. Pasting HTML bypasses all of that — the checker reads what you give it, processed entirely in your browser.

What to look for in the results

• Both preview cards should show your intended image at full size
• Title should not be truncated in either card
• Description should be readable and not cut off mid-sentence
• The recommendations panel should show no critical warnings

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Social Preview Requirements by Platform

Here is exactly what each major platform requires for a clean preview.

Facebook

• Image: 1200x630px recommended, minimum 200x200px for any display
• Title: up to 100 characters shown
• Description: up to 300 characters shown (aim for 155 for safety)
• Tags: og:title, og:description, og:image, og:url required

LinkedIn

• Image: 1200x627px recommended (matches Facebook)
• Title: up to 150 characters, but shorter reads better in the feed
• Description: up to 300 characters, but LinkedIn shows less before truncating
• Tags: same og: tags as Facebook; LinkedIn uses og:image:width and og:image:height hints if available

Twitter / X

• Image: 1200x600px for summary_large_image, minimum 300x157px; square for summary card
• Title: up to 70 characters before truncation
• Description: up to 200 characters
• Tags: twitter:card (required), twitter:title, twitter:description, twitter:image; falls back to og: equivalents

Discord

• Uses standard og: tags; shows a compact embed with thumbnail
• Image: square or wide both render but may be cropped differently
• Title limited to about 80 characters in the embed view

WhatsApp

• Image: minimum 300x200px; shows as a small thumbnail beside the text
• Title: first 80 characters displayed
• Tags: og:title, og:description, og:image

The One OG Image That Works Everywhere

If you want a single og:image that renders acceptably on every platform, use these specifications:

• Dimensions: 1200x630 pixels
• Format: JPG or PNG (PNG for graphics with text, JPG for photos)
• File size: under 8MB; under 1MB is better for fast loading by platform scrapers
• Content safe zone: keep important text and logos in the center 900x500 area to avoid cropping on platforms that use different ratios

The 1.91:1 aspect ratio (1200x630) is the universal safe choice. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all support it without cropping. Discord and WhatsApp scale it down but do not crop it oddly.

If you want separate images per platform

You can add a twitter:image tag separately from og:image. Twitter will use twitter:image for the Twitter card and ignore og:image in that case. This lets you use a 1200x630 image for Facebook/LinkedIn and a 1200x600 image specifically for the Twitter large card without either conflicting with the other.

Fixing Platform-Specific Preview Failures

When the preview checker shows a correct card but a specific platform still shows something broken, the issue is usually caching or a platform-specific rule.

Facebook showing old image after update

Go to developers.facebook.com/tools/debug, enter your URL, and click "Scrape Again." Facebook will fetch a fresh copy of your page and update its cached preview. The process is immediate and the new preview should appear within a few minutes.

LinkedIn ignoring your og:image

LinkedIn can be strict about image dimensions. If your og:image is below 1200x627px, LinkedIn may show a smaller card format or no image. Try the LinkedIn Post Inspector at linkedin.com/post-inspector to see what LinkedIn's crawler found on your page.

Twitter showing summary instead of large image

Add this tag if it is missing:

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />

Without this tag set to summary_large_image, Twitter uses the small summary format regardless of your og:image size.

Discord not showing any preview

Discord sometimes fails to fetch previews from sites that block bots. Discord's scraper uses a user-agent that some Cloudflare or bot-protection configs block. If your site uses aggressive bot protection, you may need to whitelist Discord's IP ranges or use a CDN that serves the meta tags without bot challenges.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need separate OG tags for each social platform?

Not usually. Standard og: tags work across Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Discord, and iMessage. For Twitter, add a twitter:card tag to control the card format. If you want a different image specifically for Twitter, add a twitter:image tag alongside og:image. Everything else can share the same og: tags.

Why does my link preview look different in Discord than in the checker?

Discord applies its own image cropping and sometimes shows a different card format depending on whether the link is posted in a direct message or a server channel. The checker shows the standard OG card output, which is what Discord reads. If Discord is cropping your image unexpectedly, try adjusting your og:image to a 1:1 or 2:1 aspect ratio.

How do I make WhatsApp show a large image instead of a small thumbnail?

WhatsApp always shows a thumbnail-sized image beside the link text — it does not have a large card format like Facebook. To make the thumbnail as clear as possible, use a square or near-square og:image with the key content centered. Minimum 300x200 pixels, but 1200x630 works fine and will be scaled down.