How to Clear Link Preview Cache Stored by Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter

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If you've ever run into a situation where you have updated your site's meta tags, but the Share Preview of your post is showing out of date/incorrect information, you may need to reset the cached images/data for your page(s) on the social networks.

More social networks 'cache' specific data about your posts when they are first shared to the platform. The social networks store this information for usually around 30 days (although this can vary). So if you've made significant changes to your metatags, you may need to instruct the social networks to reset their cached data for your pages and get the most up-to-date information.

This article will walk you through how to reset the link preview cache for various social networks.

Facebook

Facebook has an excellent resource, the Facebook Sharing Debugger Tool that makes this quick and easy.

  1. Visit https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/

  2. Enter your url and click on Debug

    fb_debugger_initial.png

    This will give you a snapshot of what exactly Facebook sees for that URL - the title, image, link, and much more (including the 'last scraped' date).

  3. To force Facebook to recrawl your page for updated information, click on the Scrape Again button.

    fb-debugger-scrapeagain.png

    Facebook will then recrawl your page, and you should see your updated data (like images and titles) being reflected.

  4. Now try sharing your url on Facebook again

To learn more about Facebook's Open Graph metatags, check out their official documentation.

Pinterest

  1. Visit https://developers.pinterest.com/tools/url-debugger/
  2. Enter your url and click on Validate. You will see the updated preview image.
    pinterest-clear-link-cache.png
  3. Now try sharing your url on Pinterest again

To learn more about Pinterest Rich Pins, visit the official documentation.

Twitter

Twitter has the Twitter Card Validator. Use this tool to clear Twitter's link cache and re-acquire the data from your page, showing the most up-to-date information based on your current twitter:card meta tags.

  1. Visit https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator
  2. Enter your url and click on Preview Card. You will see the updated preview image.
    twitter-clear-link-cache.png
  3. Now try sharing your url on Twitter again

To learn more about Twitter's Twitter:Card Metatags, check out their official documentation.  We also have an article with a brief overview on Twitter Cards in our Help Center here.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn keeps the cached data from a shared post for 7 days from the first time the link is shared. You can use the LinkedIn Post Inspector tool to reset this cache.

  1. Visit https://www.linkedin.com/post-inspector/inspect/
  2. Enter your url and click on Inspect. You will see the updated preview image.
    linkedin-clear-link-cache.png
  3. Now try sharing your url on LinkedIn again

LinkedIn also uses the Open Graph metatags to determine what content to include in the shared preview of your post. You can learn more about the Open Graph tags in the official documentation.

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