What is Open Graph and why is it needed?
Open Graph is a markup standard developed by Facebook that lets you control how a page looks when shared on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, etc.).
How it works:
Special tags like these are added to the <head> of the HTML page:
html
<meta property="og:title" content="Page title">
<meta property="og:description" content="Description">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://site.com/image.jpg">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://site.com/page">Why it is needed:
- Control over appearance when shared Without OG, a social network substitutes arbitrary text and an image. With OG, you set it all yourself.
- Increased click-through rate An attractive title + image = a higher chance of being clicked.
- Brand consistency All links get a unified visual style. This matters for image.
- Messenger support Telegram, WhatsApp, iMessage use OG tags for link previews.
If you do not set Open Graph, social networks will generate the snippet their own way. And that is a lottery.
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