Guide
Check a page, fix its tags, and copy the code. Here’s how, and what each tag is for.
Using MetaCheck
- Check a URL. Type a page address in the field at the top (no need for https://) and press Check. Press
/or⌘Kto jump to it. - See the previews. The Preview view shows how the link looks on each platform. Pick platforms with the chips; More holds the rest.
- Read the checks. The Checks view lists errors and warnings, why they matter and how to fix them.
- Edit. Change the title, description and image in the editor; previews and checks update as you type. Per-platform text and Advanced hold the rest.
- Copy the code. The Code view writes the tags for HTML, Nuxt, Vue, Next.js, React, Astro or JSON.
The page address updates as you check, so you can share or bookmark any result. Start from scratch to write tags for a page that isn’t live yet.
What each tag does
| Tag | Used by | Tip |
|---|---|---|
<title> | Search results, browser tabs, fallback for every card | 30–60 characters. Put the important words first. |
description | Search snippet, card text | 110–160 characters. One or two plain sentences. |
og:title | Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, WhatsApp, iMessage… | Can differ from <title>, e.g. without your brand suffix. |
og:description | Card text on most apps | Some platforms hide it; don’t rely on it for key information. |
og:image | Every large card | Absolute URL, 1200 × 630 px, under 5 MB. |
og:image:alt | Screen readers | Describe what the image shows. |
og:url | Attribution of shares and likes | Use the canonical URL. |
og:type | How platforms classify the page | website for most pages, article for posts. |
twitter:card | X | summary_large_image for a full-width image; summary for a thumbnail. |
twitter:title / description / image | X only | Optional: X uses og:* when these are missing. |
canonical | Search engines | The preferred URL when a page is reachable at several. |
robots | Search engines | Leave unset to allow indexing. noindex hides the page. |
theme-color | Browser UI on phones, Discord embeds | A hex colour that matches your brand. |
Why previews differ from what you see
Platforms cache link previews. After changing your tags, ask them to fetch again:
- Facebook: Sharing Debugger
- LinkedIn: Post Inspector
- X, Slack and others refresh on their own, usually within a day.
MetaCheck reads the HTML your server sends, without running JavaScript, as social platforms do. If your tags are added by JavaScript in the browser, platforms won’t see them either.