Link Preview
Inspect Open Graph and Twitter Card metadata for any public URL. See what your link will look like on Google, Facebook, X, and Slack before you share it.
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About Link Preview
Preview content free online with Link Preview. Browser-based, no signup, no installation — instant results for creators.
Link Preview is a free online tool that inspects the Open Graph and Twitter Card metadata of any public URL so you can see exactly how a link will render on Google, Facebook, X, Slack, and other social surfaces before you share it. Sharing a link without verifying its preview often leads to broken titles, missing images, generic descriptions, or wrong site attribution. This tool solves that by retrieving the page, parsing its metadata, and presenting the results in a way that mirrors how each social platform will display the link. When you paste a URL, the tool fetches the page from a hardened preview server and extracts the relevant tags: standard meta description, og:title, og:description, og:image, og:site_name, og:type, twitter:title, twitter:description, twitter:image, and the page favicon. The previews you see reflect the same data the social networks use to compose their cards, so you can fix metadata issues before your audience sees them. The tool is helpful before sharing campaign links, blog posts, product pages, or any URL where presentation matters. It is also useful when debugging why a link unfurl is showing the wrong image, the wrong title, or no description at all. Editors, marketers, and developers can use it as a quick pre-flight check so they never ship a link with a broken preview. Behind the scenes, the preview endpoint enforces strict safety checks: only http and https are accepted, default ports only, DNS resolution against private/loopback/link-local/multicast/reserved ranges is blocked, redirects are validated one hop at a time, response bodies are capped, and the upstream timeout is short. This keeps the tool useful for arbitrary public URLs without exposing the service to common SSRF risks.
Key features
- Open Graph + Twitter Card inspection. Reads og:* and twitter:* tags alongside the standard meta description, so you can confirm the same title, description, and image will be used across networks.
- Pre-flights for major social surfaces. Renders how the link will look on Google search results, Facebook, X, and Slack unfurls — the four surfaces that matter most for shared links.
- Hardened preview endpoint. Only public http(s) URLs are accepted. DNS resolution rejects private, loopback, link-local, multicast, and reserved ranges, and redirects are re-validated per hop.
- Bounded upstream fetch. Response size and timeouts are capped so a slow or oversized page cannot stall the tool or leak arbitrary content into the preview.
- Copy-ready JSON output. Inspected metadata can be copied as JSON, useful for QA reports, ticket attachments, and content review threads.
Common use cases
- Verifying a campaign launch link before distribution. Editors confirm the right title, description, image, and site name are attached before the link is shared in an email blast or social post.
- Debugging a missing or wrong preview image. Marketers see exactly which og:image or twitter:image tag the tool detected and where it points, so they can fix the source markup quickly.
- Reviewing third-party content before quoting or sharing. Support teams verify what a partner page looks like before linking to it, ensuring the preview will not embarrass the brand.
- Comparing Facebook vs. X rendering behavior. Developers confirm that both networks will pick up the right tags by previewing each card side by side in the same tool.
How to use it
- Paste a public URL — Enter the link you want to inspect, for example https://example.com/article. Only http and https URLs are accepted.
- Run the preview — The tool fetches the page on a hardened preview server, validates the URL, and parses the metadata tags.
- Inspect each card — Review the Google result, the Facebook Open Graph card, the X card, and the Slack unfurl. Each card uses the same metadata so differences usually point to a missing or wrong tag.
- Copy or fix the metadata — If everything looks good, share as is. If not, fix the og:* and twitter:* tags at the source and re-run the preview until it matches your intent.
Examples
Open Graph image check
Input https://example.com/blog/post-2026
Output Confirmed og:title, og:description, og:image (absolute URL), og:site_name, and og:type. All four card previews show the same hero image.
Twitter-only metadata
Input https://example.com/landing/spring
Output Detected twitter:title and twitter:image. Facebook falls back to Open Graph and shows a generic preview; fixing the source HTML resolves the gap.
Missing metadata
Input https://example.com/empty-page
Output No title or description detected. Tool reports empty fields, prompting the author to add at least <title> and <meta name="description"> tags.
Troubleshooting
The tool reports the target as unsafe
Cause The hostname resolves to a private, loopback, link-local, multicast, or reserved IP range, which the preview endpoint blocks to prevent SSRF.
Fix Use a genuinely public URL. Internal addresses and metadata-endpoint IPs cannot be reached; fix the source domain instead of disabling the safety check.
The tool times out or rejects as too large
Cause The upstream page is slow, redirects too many times, or returns more than the configured byte cap.
Fix Test the URL directly in a browser. If the page is healthy but heavy, link to a slimmer landing page or summary URL instead.
Title or description are clipped
Cause The page declares oversized metadata. The tool clamps the title to 200 characters and the description to 500 characters.
Fix Shorten the metadata at the source. Social networks also truncate aggressively, so a tighter title and description will display more consistently.
FAQ · 05
What does the Link Preview tool actually fetch?
The tool fetches the public HTML of the URL you provide from a hardened preview server, parses the metadata, and returns the title, description, image, site name, favicon, and content type. It does not render the page visually, and it does not download every asset on the page.
Why is my preview showing the wrong image?
Each social network picks the image using slightly different rules. Make sure the page declares og:image (preferred) or twitter:image, with an absolute URL that is publicly reachable. If only twitter:image is set, some platforms will fall back to that; if neither is set, the platform may pick a generic image or nothing at all.
Can I preview private or authentication-protected URLs?
No. The preview endpoint is intentionally limited to public, anonymous requests. Internal addresses, login-gated pages, and resources behind authentication headers cannot be reached. Use the preview for public marketing and editorial pages only.
Why do Facebook and X sometimes show different previews?
Each network has its own cache and its own metadata preferences. Open Graph tags control Facebook, while Twitter falls back to twitter:* tags. If only one set is declared, the other platform may not display the intended preview. The card preview here lets you verify both at once.
How long until social platforms pick up my updated metadata?
Social networks cache link previews aggressively. Even after you fix your tags, it can take minutes to days for a fresh preview to appear on Facebook, X, or LinkedIn. Each platform exposes a debugger that lets you force a refresh of the cache.
Working in other tools? You may also need URL Unshorten, QR Code Generator or Text To Speech — part of our other tools toolkit.
Blog Posts About This Tool
Learn when to use Link Preview, common workflows, and related best practices from our blog.
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