If you are having trouble Publicizing your posts to your social networks, here are some troubleshooting tips that you can try before contacting us for help. Of course, please do contact us if you still need help!
In this document:
- Jetpack’s Open Graph tags are not there
- Jetpack’s Open Graph tags are there, but Publicize still fails
- Facebook is showing the wrong image
- My site uses an Internationalized Domain Name
Jetpack and Open Graph tags
For publicizing to Facebook and Google+, your posts must have valid Open Graph meta tags. You can use Facebook’s Debug tool to see if your site has valid Open Graph tags. Jetpack will normally output those tags for you in your site’s source. If you are having trouble publicizing your posts to Facebook, the first thing you can check is to see if you have Jetpack’s Open Graph tags in your post’s source code. It’s important that you check the individual post’s source, and not your home page. You should see something like this:
<!-- Jetpack Open Graph Tags --> <meta property="og:type" content="article" /> <meta property="og:title" content="Indispensable Jetpack features for theme developers" /> <meta property="og:url" content="http://jetpack.me/2014/07/02/indispensable-jetpack-features-for-theme-developers/" /> <meta property="og:description" content="Jetpack offers a number of great features for theme developers that help you cut down both development time as well as load times. Most of these features work right out of the box, but you can also..." /> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Jetpack for WordPress" /> <meta property="og:image" content="http://jetpackme.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/wordpress-cogs.png?w=300" />
Note that the exact meta tags will be generated based on your content. The important thing to look for is this:
<!-- Jetpack Open Graph Tags -->
If you see that, then you know that Jetpack is outputting it’s Open Graph meta tags. If you see Jetpack’s tags but your posts still aren’t being publicized, then look further below.
Jetpack’s Open Graph tags are not there
If you don’t see Jetpack’s Open Graph tags in your source, then it’s possible that you have a conflicting plugin active. Since Facebook will give an error if there are duplicate Open Graph tags, Jetpack automatically deactivates it’s Open Graph tag generation when it detects one of these conflicting plugins. The most popular of these plugins include WordPress SEO by Yoast, Shareaholic, and the Official Facebook plugin; you can see the full list of plugins here.
If you have one of these plugins active, make sure that you have enabled their Open Graph tag generation. Some do it automatically, but some of these plugins require you to configure them for them to output the tags. Check with the plugin author for help!
Alternatively, if you want to continue using those plugins but not their Open Graph output, then you can use this plugin to force Jetpack to output it’s tags: Always Use Open Graph with Jetpack. Remember to check to make sure you are not outputting duplicate Open Graph tags with any other plugin, as that will cause Publicize to Facebook to fail.
Jetpack’s Open Graph tags are there, but Publicize still fails
If you see Jetpack’s Open Graph tags in your post’s source code, yet Publicize to Facebook failed, the next step would be to use Facebook’s Debug tool to see if there are any error messages. It may be that a plugin that is not on the list mentioned above, or even your theme, is outputting duplicate Open Graph tags. Feel free to contact us to help you interpret the results!
Facebook is showing the wrong image
Facebook depends on the Open Graph tags to choose which image it will display for any shared post. Jetpack will give several options to Facebook, including any Featured Image or Post thumbnail your post might have, as well as any other images found in your post. It is up to Facebook, however, to decide which image they will display. Also, Facebook requires that any image be at least 200px by 200px in size, and in fact, they recommend images that are at least 1200px by 630px. For more detail about Facebook’s suggested image size, take a look at their support document. If your posts images are too small, their Debug tool will indicate that.
My site uses an Internationalized Domain Name
There is a known issue with sites that have an IDN. If your site uses an IDN, Publicize to Facebook will fail.
