Open Graph

What it means

Open Graph is a set of meta tags in a page's head that decides which title, description and image appear when someone shares a link on a social network or in a messaging app. Without them the platform picks the content itself, and the result is usually haphazard.

The key tags are og:title, og:description, og:image and og:url. They often overlap with the title tag and the meta description, but they can be worded differently, because in a social feed people read the text in a different context than in search results.

Open Graph is not a direct ranking factor in search engines. It helps indirectly, though: an attractive preview earns more clicks from shares, brings traffic and with it a better chance of natural mentions and backlinks, which SEO rewards.

How it works in practice

Every important page deserves its own image at roughly a 1.91 : 1 ratio, for example 1200 × 630 pixels, with text that stays legible in a small preview. The same generic logo on every page looks cheap and blends into the feed alongside everyone else's posts.

On a multilingual site each language version should carry its own tags in the right language, including og:locale. Otherwise sharing the Slovak page may show an English description, which looks unprofessional and lowers the click-through rate.

Before a campaign goes live the preview is checked in the social networks' debugging tools, which also clear the old version from their cache. Online shops pair Open Graph with structured data so that price and availability are shown consistently.

What to watch out for

The image must be reachable at a public absolute URL without logging in. A relative path, blocked crawlers or an oversized file mean the preview does not appear and the link looks suspicious.

Preview text is an advertising claim like any other. A discount or price in og:description must match what the page says, otherwise you risk trouble under the rules on misleading advertising and end up with disappointed customers.