Reddit Link Preview Meta Tags

Which meta tags Reddit reads and how Embedly resolves fallbacks

Tag priority and fallback chain

Embedly checks for tags in this order:

  1. Open Graph tags
  2. oEmbed endpoint (via <link> tag)
  3. Twitter Card tags
  4. <meta name="image_src"> (legacy)
  5. Body image scraping – Embedly scans the page and ranks images by size and DOM position

Relying on fallbacks produces unpredictable results. Provide explicit OG tags.

Standard Open Graph tags

Reddit reads these via Embedly:

Tag Purpose
og:title Post title in the link preview card
og:description Description text below the title
og:image Thumbnail image for the preview
og:image:width Width hint for image sizing
og:image:height Height hint for image sizing
og:type Content type classification
og:site_name Site name shown as domain attribution

The og:image:width and og:image:height tags are worth including because Embedly uses them to rank candidate images. Without dimensions, a larger image elsewhere on the page can win the ranking over your intended preview.

Twitter Card fallback

When OG tags are absent, Embedly maps Twitter Card tags:

  • twitter:title -> preview title
  • twitter:description -> description
  • twitter:image -> thumbnail

The twitter:card type has no effect on Reddit’s display. Reddit always uses its own card layout.

No Reddit-specific debugger

Reddit has no tag debugger or preview tool. To test, either submit your URL as a link post in r/test or use Embedly’s debugger at embed.ly/code to see what metadata Embedly extracts.

Recommended minimal setup

<meta property="og:title" content="Your Page Title">
<meta property="og:description" content="A brief description of the page.">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg">
<meta property="og:image:width" content="1200">
<meta property="og:image:height" content="630">
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Your Site">