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LinkedIn Link Preview Checker

Enter a URL to see the link card LinkedIn will build for it, and validate the Open Graph tags behind it.

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Enter a URL and the card LinkedIn would build for it appears here, with a check of the Open Graph tags behind it.

How LinkedIn builds a link preview

When you paste a URL into a post, LinkedIn's crawler fetches that page once and reads its Open Graph meta tags. The card in the feed is built entirely from what it finds on that first visit.

That is why a broken preview is almost never a LinkedIn problem. It is a tags problem on the page, or a cache problem from a crawl that happened before the tags were fixed.

TagWhat LinkedIn does with it
og:titleThe card's title. Falls back to the page <title>.
og:imageThe card's image. No tag usually means a text-only card.
og:descriptionRead, but the feed card no longer displays it.
og:urlThe canonical address shares consolidate on.

How the LinkedIn link preview card changed (2024)

The card used to carry more. Over 2024 LinkedIn slimmed the organic link preview down to the image, the title, and the domain: the og:description text stopped rendering in the feed, and pages without a usable og:image now often collapse to a plain text link instead of getting a placeholder card.

LinkedIn also no longer lets you edit a preview's title or image inside the post composer. The page's own tags are the only lever left, which is exactly what this checker validates. If your previews looked richer a couple of years ago and thinner now, nothing broke on your side; the card itself changed.

The image spec that prevents most failures

  • 1200 by 627 pixels, a 1.91:1 ratio. LinkedIn crops toward this shape.
  • An absolute https URL. Relative paths and http images often fail silently.
  • Under 5 MB, and a plain JPG or PNG. Exotic formats get skipped.
  • At least 200 pixels wide, or LinkedIn tends to drop the image entirely.

Match the symptom to the cause

Most broken previews fall into one of four patterns. Find yours in the table, and you know what to fix before you touch anything.

What you seeMost likely causeThe fix
The wrong image on the cardLinkedIn cached a crawl from before you changed it, or the page carries several og:image tagsKeep one og:image, then force a recrawl with Post Inspector
An old title after a page updateThe cached crawl again. Your tags are probably already rightRecrawl with Post Inspector and recheck in a draft
No card at all, just a bare linkNo usable og:image, or the crawler never reached the pageRun the checker above; fix the tags or unblock the crawler
A card on Facebook but not on LinkedInA bot rule that lets Facebook's crawler through and blocks LinkedIn'sAllowlist LinkedInBot in your firewall or bot protection

When the preview is wrong or missing

  1. Run the URL through the checker above and fix whatever fails.
  2. Confirm the page is public. Login walls and firewalls stop the crawler cold.
  3. Paste the URL into LinkedIn's Post Inspector to force a fresh crawl. Fixed tags do nothing while the cached preview lives on.
  4. Recheck in a draft post. The new card should match the mock above.

Is your site blocking the LinkedIn crawler?

LinkedIn fetches pages with a user agent that contains the name LinkedInBot. Firewalls, CDNs, and bot-protection tools see that name on every visit. A rule written to stop scrapers can catch it too, and then the crawler gets an error page instead of your article.

This failure is invisible from your browser. The page loads fine for you because you are a person clicking a link, not a bot announcing itself. From LinkedIn's side, the fetch came back empty, so there is nothing to build a card from.

Two checks settle it. Search your server or CDN logs for LinkedInBot and look at the status codes next to it. Anything in the 400s or 500s means blocked. Or fetch the page from a terminal using that user agent and see whether you get your real HTML back.

One link, one card

A LinkedIn post shows at most one link preview, built from the first eligible link. If you want no card at all, click the small X on the preview before publishing. Deleting the URL text alone does not remove it.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my LinkedIn link preview not working?
Usually one of three things. The page is missing og:title or og:image tags, so LinkedIn has nothing to build a card from. The page blocks crawlers, through a login wall, a firewall, or a bot rule. Or the tags are fine now but LinkedIn cached a crawl from before the fix. The checker above separates the first two; Post Inspector fixes the third.
Why is LinkedIn showing the wrong image for my link?
Almost always the cache. LinkedIn built the card from a crawl that happened before you changed the image, and it keeps serving that version. Fix og:image if it still points at the old file, then force a recrawl with Post Inspector. If the wrong image survives that, check the page for more than one og:image tag and keep only the one you want.
How do I refresh LinkedIn's link preview cache?
Paste the URL into LinkedIn Post Inspector at linkedin.com/post-inspector. Inspecting a URL forces LinkedIn to crawl it again, which replaces the cached preview. Without that, the old card can persist for roughly a week.
Why does my preview work on Facebook but not LinkedIn?
Each platform runs its own crawler with its own cache, so one can succeed where the other fails. The usual cause of this exact split is a bot rule that allows Facebook's crawler, facebookexternalhit, but blocks LinkedIn's, LinkedInBot. Check your firewall or bot protection for rules that name crawlers, allowlist LinkedInBot, then recrawl with Post Inspector. A fresh fix can also simply reach one platform's cache before the other.
What user agent does the LinkedIn crawler use?
LinkedIn's crawler identifies itself with a user agent string containing LinkedInBot. That is the name to search for in your server logs, and the name to allowlist in a firewall or bot-protection rule. If your logs show LinkedInBot hitting errors, LinkedIn cannot read your tags. No fix on the page will show up until it can get through.
What image size does LinkedIn use for link previews?
1200 by 627 pixels, a 1.91:1 ratio, is the documented recommendation. Larger images at the same ratio are fine. Very small images, roughly under 200 pixels wide, tend to get dropped, leaving a text-only card.
Is there a LinkedIn share debugger like Facebook's?
The closest official equivalent is LinkedIn's Post Inspector at linkedin.com/post-inspector, which recrawls a URL and refreshes the cached preview, but it requires a LinkedIn login and shows raw tag data rather than the card. This checker is the debugger for the other half: it renders the card as the feed will and validates each Open Graph tag, no login needed. Use this to find and fix the problem, then Post Inspector to flush LinkedIn's cache.
Can I customize the link preview on LinkedIn?
Only from the page's side. The card is built from the page's Open Graph tags, so you change the preview by changing og:title and og:image on the page itself, then refreshing the cache with Post Inspector. The post composer no longer lets you edit a preview's title or image directly.
Why doesn't the card show my description?
LinkedIn's current feed card shows the image, the title, and the domain. The og:description tag is read but not displayed there. Keep it anyway: other platforms show it, and some LinkedIn surfaces still use it.
Do you store the URLs I check?
No. The server fetches the page once to read its tags, returns the result to your browser, and keeps nothing. Checks are rate limited per visitor to keep the tool fast for everyone.

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