When a visitor shares a Page or Post from your website to Facebook, Facebook’s API scrapes or reads through your Page/Post content. If it is able to detect specific HTML Open Graph Markup then it will use these details for the post that will appear on Facebook, when shared. If the markup is not detected within your content, Facebook will try to determine these values. However, in this case, Facebook’s preview may not accurately display your content’s title, description, and/or preview image. In this guide, you can learn how to use the Facebook Developer Sharing Debugger Tool to preview how a post would appear when your website content is shared on Facebook.
- First, open your web browser and visit the Facebook for Developers website to use the Sharing Debugger Tool.
- Click on the Log In button.
- Once you are redirected to the Facebook log in page, enter your Facebook username and password, then click Log In.
- When you arrive back at the Facebook Sharing Debugger Tool (after logging in) enter the URL for the Page (or Post) you would like to preview.
- Click on the Debug button.
The details regarding your Page/Post and a preview of how the Facebook post will appear will be displayed.
NOTE: Compare the Time Scraped value to determine when Facebook last attempted to review the URL you entered. Keep in mind, caching plugins or configurations may cause unexpected or old results. Regardless, clicking the Scrape Again button should refresh the information and provide an updated preview.
NOTICE: If you are presented with “Warnings That Should Be Fixed“, you can use the Open Graph for Facebook, Google+ and Twitter Card Tags plugin (for WordPress) to correct most errors regarding missing Open Graph properties.
Now that you are familiar with how to use this tool, you can test/preview how sharing content from your website will appear in Facebook posts. This will help you design your content so the image and/or description you desire are used when sharing a Page/Post from your website on Facebook.
