Have you ever tried posting a link to Facebook and you just can’t get the image that you want to appear as the featured image? Or maybe you can’t get any image to appear? When I moved my blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org I started having these issues. Sometimes Facebook would give me several images to choose from but they would be my logos or my Instagram photos, basically every photo except the one I really wanted. Sometimes it wouldn’t give me any image at all….
That’s when I turned to Google for help and came across the Facebook Debugger. I can’t tell you exactly how it works from a technical point of view-but using the steps outlined below I’m now able to choose exactly which photo I want to appear on Facebook. It’s a bit of a weird issue that most people probably won’t come across, but for anyone having the same problem, I hope this helps!
1. If you’re using wordpress.org and want to choose exactly which image you want to show up on Facebook, download the Yoast SEO plug-in. This plug-in has many worthwhile uses, one of which is setting this image. Click on Upload Image on the Social tab to choose your desired image. If your post is ready to be shared with the world, go ahead and Publish your post.
2. Copy the permalink to your post, paste the URL in the Facebook Debugger, and click ‘Debug’.
3. On your Facebook page, paste the desired URL in your Status Update box and voilà, your chosen image appears! There has been a time or two when I’ve had to run the debugger twice, but it has always worked for me in the end.
Hope this helps, and if you have any questions please leave them in comments!