How to Fix Post Display on Facebook Using Facebook Debugger
Last Updated: April 6, 2021 in Guides
Today, Facebook has become a popular social networking channel. It is estimated that billions of posts are posted every minute on this channel. Surely you've also shared a post on the website (share link) on Facebook. However, Facebook doesn't always display the right information about that post. Sometimes it displays the wrong information or shows missing avatar, title, description, ... It's annoying when your blog or website is a similar case. To fix post display on Facebook, Facebook has a tool called Debugger that helps you check the errors as well as force Facebook to update new information from the link you want.
However, before learning how to use this tool, let's see why you encounter errors like the above.
Whenever someone shares a post on Facebook, Facebook scans and saves the basic information about the image, URL, title, description, and even meta tags of that post.
The basic information of the post is scrawled by Facebook
The meta tag information of the post is scrawled by Facebook as well
Firstly, if the post's data does not follow Facebook's criteria, your post will display with some missing things. On the other hand, if the meta tags contain the wrong information, the post will display incorrectly as well.
Secondly, this information will be cached by Facebook for 30 days. So, if you change the post information, it will not show the new information until the cache expires. Your post is going to display properly when Facebook scrape the link once again.
Facebook Debugger helps you to fix both the two above causes by finding the errors, clear Facebook’s cache, and force Facebook to update the information.
Check for Post Display Errors by Using Facebook Debugger
When you share your post on Facebook, you have two ways to know that it displays wrong or not:
- Paste the link in the sharing box on Facebook to create a new post (there is no need to publish it). Right after that, Facebook will show the post preview. You will immediately see if the information displayed right or not.
- Access the Open Graph Object Debugger tool of Facebook Debugger and paste the link in the box. Then, press one of the two green buttons. Immediately, the preview of the post will also show at the below for you to check, even Facebook will also give you the errors that you need to fix.
Fix the Errors of Post Displays on Facebook
When posts have errors about displaying on Facebook, we often have to do one or all of the following:
- Check and update meta tags on your website;
- Clear the cache on your website;
- Force Facebook Debugger to update the post information.
If your post has been updated and the previous posts have no problems in displaying, you only need to do the 3rd step. In other cases, you should perform all three.
There are many ways to check, even create meta tags on your website. The most common ways are using WordPress plugins for SEO. Most of them support this feature such as Slim SEO, or Yoast SEO.
Slim SEO will automatically generate the tags following the criteria. Your mission is installing it only. There is no additional action to do. (To learn about how to optimize your WordPress site with Slim SEO, refer to this article).
For Yoast SEO, follow this guide to fix meta tags.
Log in to the admin account and go to the edit section of the post which you want to update. Scroll down to Yoast SEO's section below the post.
Edit the meta tags of the post with Yoast SEO
Go to the Social tab of the box and select the Facebook item. Then, fill in the information which you want the post to appear on Facebook as well as its thumbnail. Then, save the post as well.
Clear the Cache on your Website to Fix Post Display on Facebook
Clearing the cache will ensure that Facebook will not crawl the old version of your website’s information.
If you are using the WordPress plugin for saving the cache, you will have options to clear the cache as well.
Using popular plugins like W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache, you just need to go to the dashboard of these plugins in the admin section of WordPress, choose to delete the entire website cache.
Some other plugins help you to delete the cache of individual posts as follows.
Generally, it depends on what plugins you use, see the instructions of that plugin to clear the cache.
Force Facebook to update the information
After adding or editing meta tags on your website and clearing the cache, you need to go back to the Facebook Debugger page to force Facebook to scan the information again.
On the Facebook Debugger page, enter the post link in the box and click the Debug button.
Enter the URL of the post to check
In the information is displayed at the below, click the Scrape Again button. This action asks Facebook to scan your link and crawl new information.
Ask Facebook to record new website information
It only takes a few seconds for Facebook to scan and record the new information. After that, you can re-check if the displayed content and meta tags of the post have been updated or not. At this step, everything may be right. Otherwise, come back from the step of editing meta tags.
Bonus
To make sure that your post will display correctly and beautifully, you should pay attention to some additional points as follows:
- Use photos with the right size: Photos must have a ratio of 1.91:1 or 1:1. To make the image appear sharper and more beautiful, you should choose one having either width or height is more than 500 px.
- The title displays fully when it is less than 25 characters. In some cases, if the title is longer, it may not show all the text.
- The post description will also display most fully when there are less than 30 characters. Similar to the title, it may be partially hidden if you write longer.
Final Words
It is quite easy to get a good looking for your post on Facebook. Just follow the instructions of Facebook and ask them to update the post information every time you change it. Don't use Facebook Debugger only when you see an error. You should regularly use it to ensure that the post always displays perfectly on Facebook.
I also hope that this article can help you understand Facebook Debugger and use it to fix post display on Facebook easier. In addition, from 10/24/2020, Facebook and Instagram embedded links are no more supported by WordPress, get more details on how to fix it here!