OG Image Not Showing on Facebook? The Fix List

If your Open Graph image isn't showing on Facebook, it's almost always one of four things: a relative og:image path instead of an absolute HTTPS URL, an image under Facebook's 200×200 minimum, a stale cache from an earlier scrape, or the image sitting behind login or a robots block. Run your URL through Facebook's Sharing Debugger and it will tell you which one. This page is the full fix list, in the order worth checking.

Why does the OG image work everywhere but Facebook?

Facebook is the strictest of the major scrapers, so a card that previews fine in iMessage or Slack can still come back blank on Facebook. Two Facebook-specific behaviors cause most of the surprise: it enforces a 200×200 minimum and rejects smaller images outright, and it caches scraped metadata for roughly 30 days. That cache is why editing your tags appears to do nothing — Facebook is still serving the old scrape.

The image matters more than most bloggers think. A shared link with an image earns far more attention than a bare link, so a blank Facebook card is leaving reach on the table.

What are the most common causes, ranked?

Work top to bottom. The first two account for the large majority of "OG image not showing on Facebook" reports, and both show up clearly in the Debugger output.

How do I fix a relative or wrong og:image URL?

Facebook will not resolve a relative path. The og:image value must be an absolute HTTPS URL:

<!-- Broken: Facebook can't resolve this -->
<meta property="og:image" content="/images/card.jpg" />

<!-- Correct: absolute HTTPS URL -->
<meta property="og:image" content="https://yoursite.com/images/card.jpg" />

While you're in the source, confirm there's exactly one og:image tag. Some themes and SEO plugins inject a second one, and Facebook may pick the wrong image or none at all. For the full tag reference, see Open Graph Meta Tags Explained; for the protocol itself, What Is Open Graph?.

How do I force Facebook to refresh the preview?

The cache is the part people miss. Editing tags doesn't update a preview that Facebook has already scraped — you have to tell it to scrape again.

1. Run the Sharing Debugger. Open developers.facebook.com/tools/debug, paste the exact URL you share, and read the warnings. It shows the og:image Facebook resolved and flags anything missing or invalid.
2. Confirm og:image is an absolute HTTPS URL. View source and check it's a full https:// URL, not a relative path. This is the single most common cause of a blank card.
3. Verify dimensions and file size. Make sure the image is at least 200×200 (ideally 1200×630, a 1.91:1 ratio) and under ~200 KB.
4. Click "Scrape Again." This clears Facebook's cache for that URL and pulls your current tags. The new card appears once the scrape completes.

What size should the Facebook OG image be?

Use 1200×630 pixels — the universal 1.91:1 ratio Facebook recommends. That single size also works as an X summary_large_image card, on LinkedIn, and in Discord, so you rarely need a Facebook-specific asset.

Keep your logo and headline inside a ~60px safe-zone margin so nothing critical gets cropped on mobile. The full per-platform breakdown lives in the 2026 social media image size cheat sheet. If the preview is still broken after all of this, work through Why Your Link Preview Is Broken.

The one-line takeaway

A Facebook preview shows up when the og:image is an absolute HTTPS URL, the image is at least 200×200 (ship 1200×630), and you've re-scraped in the Sharing Debugger. Generating that card for every post — correctly sized, branded, and served at a stable absolute URL so Facebook never chokes on it — is exactly what Social Card Studio does.