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Image Not Appearing on Facebook

Why your link preview shows no image at all

Likely causes

  1. Image URL broken: returns a non-200 status (missing, moved, or wrong URL)
  2. Image behind auth: requires login, cookies, or is on a private server
  3. Image below 200 x 200px: Facebook’s minimum; anything smaller is ignored
  4. Image over 8 MB: rejected regardless of resolution
  5. Relative URL: og:image must be a full URL, not a path like /images/og.jpg
  6. Tags past the 60 KB mark: Facebook only parses the first ~60 KB of HTML

Diagnosing

1. Check the Sharing Debugger

Open the Sharing Debugger and enter your URL. Common warnings:

  • “og:image could not be downloaded”: URL is inaccessible
  • “og:image was not found”: tag is missing or past the 60 KB limit
  • Dimension warnings: image is too small

2. Verify the image URL is reachable

curl -A "facebookexternalhit/1.1" -I https://example.com/your-image.jpg

You need a 200 OK with a valid Content-Type (e.g., image/jpeg). A redirect to a login page, 403, or 404 means the crawler can’t reach it.

3. Confirm absolute URL

<!-- Correct -->
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/og.jpg">

<!-- Wrong - Facebook can't resolve this -->
<meta property="og:image" content="/images/og.jpg">

4. Check dimensions and file size

  • Minimum: 200 x 200px (ignored below this)
  • Recommended: 1200 x 630px
  • Max file size: 8 MB

5. Check tag placement

If your <head> has large inline CSS or JS, the OG tags may be pushed past the 60 KB parsing limit:

curl -A "facebookexternalhit/1.1" https://example.com/page | head -c 61440 | grep "og:image"

No result? Your tags are too far down in the document.

The fix

  1. Use an absolute HTTPS URL for og:image
  2. Make the image publicly accessible, with no auth or IP restrictions
  3. Use at least 600 x 315px (ideally 1200 x 630)
  4. Keep file size under 8 MB
  5. Place meta tags early in <head>, before large inline content
  6. Sharing Debugger, “Scrape Again” to verify