Facebook Won't Let You Edit Link Previews Anymore

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Following a change to its Graph API, Facebook is removing the ability to edit a link preview – its image, title and text – before sharing a link on the platform. The change was announced three months ago at F8, and is taking effect next week.

Spammers, scammers, and “clickbaiters,” use link preview editing as a way to post false news, so Facebook is deprecating the feature. I am sure most of you have used it before, especially when sharing a link that doesn’t contain a Facebook-optimised title, subtitle or image. You may have even tried sharing a link and found that a different title or image would be more effective for your audience. Whatever the case, as of July 17 you won’t be able to edit link preview information anymore. Sad or angry? You should be. And you’re not alone.

But Facebook knows that there are publishers who “have workflows that rely on overwriting link preview metadata,” and is working on a solution for them. The company also says that it will provide “tools and resources” to support them.

Until we know of a proper solution though – Facebook promises there will be announcements in the next few weeks – the only way to do so would be via ads – i.e. running different iterations of a post that has been created as an ad. Of course, there is also the obvious option of using the right Open Graph meta tags to make your link previews look as they should. You can control these through your site’s CMS or code, but you can’t do so when sharing someone else’s content, right?