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Ideal Open Graph Image Meta Tag Size (og:image) For Facebook & Reddit Sharing
Aug 19, 2014Web and InternetComments (13)
Facebook, Reddit, and other content sharing sites look for the og:image meta tag when deciding what thumbnail to use. Here's how you should use it effectively and also what size you should make it.


The Meta Tag


First, make sure the og:image meta tag is in place on your site. This is what it should look like in the HTML source:

<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.mydomain.com/myimage.jpg">
The URL needs to be an absolute URL, including the "http" part. You can use any standard image format, such as jpg, png, or gif.


Ideal Pixel Dimensions


In short, the best size to make your image is 1200 x 1200 or larger with a square aspect ratio. This is due to the different aspect ratios Facebook, Reddit, and other sharing sites use. View this infographic for a visual guide:

How og:image looks on Facebook and Reddit


More Details


Here is more information on why you should use a 1200 x 1200 (or larger) square image.

Facebook recommends 1200 x 630 pixels for the og:image dimensions (info), which is an approximate aspect ratio of 1.91:1. This gives your shared post a full-size image above the post text. According to Facebook, you can go as low as 600 x 315 and still receive a full-size image, but I found that you can go as low as around 450 width. If you go too small (about 400 in width or less), your post will only receive a small square thumbnail on the left side. Also, if your image has a tall aspect ratio, Facebook may display a tall aspect ratio thumbnail on the left side (not square).

A note on cropping: If you have a large image that is not in the 1.91:1 aspect ratio, Facebook may center and crop it to fit. If you have a small image that is not square, Facebook may crop it or shrink it to fit the small thumbnail size.

Reddit uses a 70 x 70 square image for its thumbnail. Images of all sizes are resized down to this. Images that are wider than square will be shrunk down further to fit the width, while images that are taller will be cropped. Having a wide image is not good as it reduces the overall size of the thumbnail space that your image utilizes. Due to this, going with the Facebook recommendation of 1200 x 630 is bad for Reddit sharing.

To work well on both Facebook and Reddit, be sure to make your og:image 1200 x 1200 (or larger) that looks good both square and cropped. Facebook will crop the top and bottom, while Reddit will keep it square. This gives you the largest thumbnail image on both sharing platforms.

One last thing: If you do want to have the smaller square image thumbnail on Facebook, just make sure your og:image is smaller than 400x400 and square in aspect ratio.
Comments (13)
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Richard Silverstein   Aug 18, 2021
When I post a link to Reddit for a WP blog post, Reddit posts the same thumbnail every time. I'm trying to figure out how I can get Reddit to feature a thumbnail image from the individual post itself, rather than the same thumb for every post. Can you help?
Isle Motoland   Nov 15, 2020
Nice post, work for me. Thanks you.
Bytegrow Technologies   Sep 10, 2019
Nice post! But can you explain more about Twitter and Pinterest?
Bob   Oct 21, 2018
Telling people to put an http link on their site will cause an error, if their site is https.
RabinsXP.com   Sep 18, 2018
What about the Twitter and Pinterest?
mukesh   Dec 31, 2017
image is share but image size is not working image show large
Mircea Stoian   Mar 19, 2017
Thank you, been looking for the proper dimension by trial and error.
DrVarun Tyagi   Oct 09, 2015
Superb man!! 2 hours of stupid coding and finally i find the solution here...love it...lots of thxnx for ideal og image tag fir Facebook!!! Mmmuuuaaahhhh
Flavio Renato   Sep 10, 2015
Helpful technique for OG: types. Thanks in advance, brother!
Catalina Salvatierra   Apr 10, 2015
Thank you, thank you, thank you! :)
Jakub Zawistowski   Jan 16, 2015
USE data:blog.postFirstImageUrl NOT data:blog.postImageThumbnailUrl
Tina Fuscaldo Keane   Dec 15, 2014
I have created 1200 x 1200 images for the og:image tag as discussed above (see http://maps.nyc.gov/crime). they work fine on facebook, but linkedin does not scale/crop the images properly. Do you have any suggestions for linkedin?
Ramee Adam   Dec 14, 2014
awesome helpful post. Thank you.