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Open Graph tags: what they are and which ones every page needs

Open Graph is a protocol, originally created at Facebook, that uses meta tags in a page's head (such as og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url) to describe the page so other apps can show a rich preview when the link is shared.

Also called: Open Graph protocol, OG tags, og tags, open graph tags, og:image

Why it matters for AI search

Open Graph tags are a short, machine-readable summary of a page: its title, description, image, canonical URL and site name. Google lists og:title as one input for title links and og:site_name as one input for site names. Any crawler, agent or chat app that shows your link can read the same tags, so a clear, accurate summary in them helps your page be described the way you intend.

How Open Graph works

Open Graph turns a web page into an object with a few fixed properties. You add <meta> tags with a property attribute to the page's <head>. When someone shares the link, the app fetches the page, reads the tags and builds a preview card. The protocol's site says it was originally created at Facebook and based its first version on RDFa.

A minimal set looks like this:

<meta property="og:title" content="Acme Running Shoe, Model 3" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/shoes/model-3" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/img/model-3.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image:alt" content="Blue running shoe, side view" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Lightweight trail shoe with a wide toe box." />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Acme" />

The four required properties are og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url. The og:url value should be the canonical URL, because the protocol treats it as the object's permanent ID. That makes it a natural partner to the canonical tag.

Meta's sharing guide says that without these tags its crawler falls back on its own heuristics to guess the title, description and image, which often picks the wrong ones. It also recommends setting og:image:width and og:image:height so the image loads properly the first time a link is shared.

What it means for search and AI answers

Open Graph is not a ranking signal you can tune, but it is read. Google lists og:title among the sources it uses to build title links, and its site name system considers og:site_name alongside the title element and headings. If your Open Graph title says one thing and your title element says another, you give Google mixed signals.

The same tags are visible to anything that fetches your page, including the crawlers and agents behind AI tools. They are a compact statement of what the page is. Keep them accurate, specific and consistent with the visible content and your schema markup.

How to check your tags

  1. View the page source and search for og:. Confirm the four required tags are present and server-rendered, not added later by a script.
  2. Paste the URL into Meta's Sharing Debugger. It shows what the crawler scraped, lists errors and warnings, and re-scrapes the page.
  3. Make og:url match your canonical URL and og:title match the page's real title.
  4. When you change the preview image, publish it at a new URL, since cached images keep their old version.
  5. Add og:image:alt. The protocol says pages that set og:image should include it.

Open Graph covers the preview. For richer, entity-level description use JSON-LD structured data, which can make a page eligible for rich results. To see how bots fetch your pages in the first place, read about the user agent string.

Questions

Which Open Graph tags are required?
The protocol lists four: og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url. Most sites also add og:description, og:site_name and og:image:alt.
Does Google use Open Graph tags?
Partly. Google lists og:title among the sources it uses to create title links, and its site name system considers og:site_name. They are inputs, not overrides: the title element, headings and WebSite structured data matter too.
Why does my old preview image still show after I changed og:image?
Meta caches images by URL and says they will not update unless the URL changes. Publish the new image at a new URL, then use the Sharing Debugger to make the crawler scrape the page again.
Are Open Graph tags the same as schema markup?
No. Open Graph is a small set of meta tags for link previews. Schema.org markup, usually written as JSON-LD, describes entities in much more detail and feeds Google rich results. Many pages use both, and they should agree.

Related terms

Sources