The best free Open Graph checkers, ranked
By Philipp Kant 4 min read
An Open Graph checker is a tool that reads the og: and twitter: meta
tags of a page and shows the preview card that LinkedIn, Facebook, X,
WhatsApp, or Slack will build when someone shares the link. Free checkers
come in two kinds: the platforms’ own debuggers and independent previewers
that show several platforms at once.
The preview decides whether a shared link gets clicked. A card with a sharp image and a clear title gets the click; a grey box with the domain name gets scrolled past.
| Tool | Kind | Platforms | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn Post Inspector | Official debugger | Free, LinkedIn login | |
| Facebook Sharing Debugger | Official debugger | Facebook, also read by WhatsApp | Free, Facebook login |
| OpenGraph.xyz | Previewer | Several major platforms | Free, no signup |
| metatags.io | Previewer + editor | Several major platforms | Free, no signup |
| X post composer | Live test | X | Free, X account |
1. LinkedIn Post Inspector, the one that fixes LinkedIn
For B2B, LinkedIn is the preview that matters, and Post Inspector is the only tool that can change what LinkedIn shows. Paste a URL and it fetches the page again, displays the preview, lists the tags it read, and refreshes LinkedIn’s cache in the process.
That last part is the reason to use it: LinkedIn keeps old previews for days. After fixing a title or image, Post Inspector is how the fix reaches the feed.
2. Facebook Sharing Debugger, the most detailed scraper report
Meta’s Sharing Debugger shows exactly what Facebook’s crawler received: every Open Graph property, the response code, redirects, and warnings for missing or malformed tags. “Scrape Again” refreshes the cached version. WhatsApp builds its previews from the same Open Graph tags.
It needs a Facebook login and reports only Facebook’s view.
3. OpenGraph.xyz, every platform at a glance
OpenGraph.xyz takes a URL and renders mock previews for several platforms side by side, without an account. It is the fastest way to see whether a page has a usable card at all, and how the same tags crop on different networks.
It shows previews, not causes. A missing image looks missing, and finding out why (a wrong URL, a blocked fetch, an oversized file) is left to you.
4. metatags.io, preview and edit in one place
metatags.io previews the card and lets you edit title, description, and image in place, then copy the finished meta tags. That makes it useful before launch, when the copy is still moving and you want to see the card while writing it.
Like other previewers, it does not measure the image or explain fetch failures.
5. The X composer, the only official test left
X removed the preview from its Card Validator in 2022. The working test
today is to paste the URL into a new post draft and look at the card that
appears, without posting it. X reads its own twitter: tags and falls
back to Open Graph when they are missing.
The tags every shared page needs
Five tags cover every major platform. Missing any of them leaves the platform guessing:
| Tag | What it controls | Good practice |
|---|---|---|
og:title |
The card headline | 40 to 65 characters, the point of the page |
og:description |
The line under it | 80 to 160 characters, written for a click |
og:image |
The picture | Absolute URL, 1200 × 630 px, JPG or PNG |
og:url |
The canonical address | Same as the canonical tag |
twitter:card |
X’s card size | summary_large_image for a wide image |
Why previews break
Most broken previews come from the same causes:
- Relative image URLs.
og:imagemust be absolute, withhttps://. - Images that are too large. Above roughly 300 KB, WhatsApp often shows no image at all.
- Wrong aspect ratio. A square logo in a 1.91:1 slot gets cropped into an unreadable strip.
- Old caches. The page is fixed, the platform still shows last week’s card until something forces a re-scrape.
- Blocked crawlers. A firewall that blocks unknown bots also blocks the preview fetchers. The same mistake hides sites from AI search; see how many sites block AI crawlers.
FAQ
What is the best free Open Graph checker? LinkedIn Post Inspector for LinkedIn, since it also refreshes the cache; OpenGraph.xyz for a quick look across platforms; Facebook’s Sharing Debugger when you need the raw scraper report.
Why does LinkedIn still show the old image? LinkedIn caches previews. Run the URL through Post Inspector after the fix; it fetches the page again and updates the preview.
What size should an Open Graph image be? 1200 × 630 pixels at a 1.91:1 ratio works everywhere. Keep the file under 1 MB, ideally around 300 KB so WhatsApp shows it.
Do Open Graph tags help SEO? Not as a ranking factor. They shape every shared link, and shared links are how pages earn visits, mentions, and links.
We built our own free Social Preview Check to answer the “why” the previewers skip: it renders the card for LinkedIn, X, WhatsApp, and Google, downloads the image and measures its real format, pixel size, ratio, and weight, and ranks the fixes. Full disclosure, it is ours, and it needs no signup. Previews are one part of how a page reads to machines; structured data is the next. And if every page should ship its own card without anyone maintaining it by hand, that is what we build.
Ask an AI about this post
