# What is Open Graph? Social Media Metadata for Better Link…

> Open Graph meta tags control how your content appears when shared on social media. This guide explains what they are and why they matter.

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Technical SEO

# What is Open Graph? Social Media Metadata for Better Link Sharing

  Open Graph meta tags control how your content appears when shared on social media. This guide explains what they are and why they matter.

  By Kaiser Khan · 13 July 2026 · 7 min read

 Last verified: 13 July 2026

  what is open graphopen graph meta tagsog tags SEOsocial sharing metadata

        Direct Answer

 Open Graph (OG) is a metadata protocol created by Facebook that controls how web pages appear when shared on social media platforms. When a user shares a link on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, or messaging apps, those platforms read the page's Open Graph meta tags to determine the title, description, image, and other properties to display in the link preview. Without Open Graph tags, platforms make their own guesses about what to display — often pulling incorrect or unflattering information from the page.

Open Graph metadata has become essential for any content that is expected to be shared on social media. A blog article shared on LinkedIn without Open Graph tags may display the wrong image, a truncated generic description, or no image at all — dramatically reducing click-through rates compared to a properly configured OG preview with an eye-catching image and compelling title. Implementing Open Graph correctly is one of the most impactful low-effort improvements for content-sharing performance.

## Essential Open Graph meta tags

- og:title — the title of the page as it should appear in social sharing (can differ from the page's main title)
- og:description — a brief, compelling description (130-160 characters) for the social share preview
- og:image — the image URL to display in the link preview; should be at least 1200x630 pixels for LinkedIn and Facebook
- og:url — the canonical URL of the page
- og:type — the type of content ('website', 'article', 'product')
- og:site_name — the name of the overall website
- og:image:width and og:image:height — specify image dimensions to prevent wrong-sized image loading
- article:published_time — for blog posts; the publication date displayed in some platform previews
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 Do Open Graph tags affect Google SEO?

 Open Graph tags do not directly affect Google organic search rankings — they are primarily for social platform parsing, not search engine indexation. However, they indirectly benefit SEO by improving the quality of social shares (better previews → more clicks → more traffic → positive engagement signals) and by sometimes being used by Google to understand page metadata in ambiguous cases. They are also read by messaging apps (WhatsApp, Slack, iMessage) that display link previews, extending their value beyond formal social platforms.

 What is Twitter Card and how does it differ from Open Graph?

 Twitter/X Cards are Twitter's equivalent of Open Graph — meta tags that control how links appear when shared on X (Twitter). Most Twitter Card properties overlap with Open Graph tags (Twitter reads og:image, og:title, and og:description as fallbacks), but Twitter Card also has specific properties: twitter:card (defines the card type: summary, summary_large_image, app, player), twitter:site (the @username of the site), and twitter:creator (the @username of the content creator). Implementing both Open Graph and Twitter Card tags ensures good link preview appearance across all major platforms.

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### Tags

  what is open graphopen graph meta tagsog tags SEOsocial sharing metadata

     KK

  Kaiser Khan

  Founder & Director · Elite Digital Agency

Kaiser Khan is the founder of Elite Digital Agency (Elite Digital AI Solutions Ltd). He specialises in SEO, Answer Engine Optimisation, and AI search strategy for UK businesses and charities.  Author page  ·  mrkaiserkhan.com ↗

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