Requirements

Joomla! 4.4 PHP 8.1 PHP 8.2

Joomla! 5.1 Joomla! 5.2 PHP 8.1PHP 8.2 PHP 8.3

  • Basic Joomla! knowledge available between the chair and the keyboard :)

Installation is easy!

  1. Download the plugin
  2. in the Back-end go to menu Extensions > Manage
  3. in the tab [Upload file package] click [browse]  and select your downloaded plugin
  4. click [Upload & Install], wait for the installation to finish

Configuration

  1. in the back-end go to menu Extensions > Plugins
  2. search / locate the 'ochOpenGraph' content plugin
  3. open the plugin
  4. in the tab [Plugin] set status to [Enabled]
  5. in the tab [OpenGraph settings] configure your Generic OpenGraph tags and the Image priority
  6. in the tab [Twitter Cards settings] configure your generic Twitter Card settings and the Image priority
  7. configure your extensions in the respective Integration Tab(s): these will automatically show when the extension is enabled and supported
  8. in the [Advanced] tab configure your advanced settings
  9. click [Save & Close] and you are good to go

Important: please check the FAQ and Tips and Trick in how to activate and troubleshoot Facebook / Linkedin and TwitterCards!

Activate Joomla! One Click update and change-log integration

When you install the extension, it will automatically integrate with the Joomla Updater for both updates and change-logs.

On first use, the Joomla updater will prompt you with a 'Download Key is missing!' message.

  1. On this site: Go to [Tools > My Account > My Download Keys], and copy your Download ID#.
  2. On your site: Go to System > Update Sites, locate the extension, and paste the Download ID into the 'Download Key' field. Click [Save and Close].

Important:
If you're using this Download ID on a new server, you’ll receive an email to approve the device. Click the link in the email to enable downloads from this server.
Without approval, updates won’t be authorized, and the Joomla updater will display a 401 Unauthorized error when trying to fetch updates.

That’s it! You're all set.

Manually add OpenGraph and TwitterCard meta tags to other (non-article) pages

The ochOpenGraph plugin automatically adds the OpenGraph and Twitter Cards meta tags to Extensions for which there is an integration (Currently: Joomla articlesochSubscriptions).

You can also add OpenGraph and Twitter Cards meta tags to other pages. Prerequisite is that the components that generate these pages trigger content plugins or you can use a Custom module that you assign to the specific page(s):

  1. create / open the custom module
  2. insert:{ochopengraph image="https://your custom image url"} into the module (if no image is specified, the default fall-back images will be used)
  3. set the module to an active template position
  4. Assign the menu items that you want to assign this custom module to
  5. in the [Options tab] of the custom module set [Prepare content] = 'Yes'
  6. disable caching of the module if you are using the module on different pages
  7. click [Save & Close]
  8. when surfing to your page on the front-end, the OpenGraph and Twitter Card meta tags will be automatically added (visible in page source)

Are you using Kunena (forum)? Due to how Kunena pages handle Custom modules you need to set caching of the custom module to off!

Tag parameters!

You can set the following parameters giving you full control of what is being shared:

  • image="path to image": this allows you to use a different image then the image in the article
  • title="custom title": set a different title then the article title as the title to be used on Social Media when the page is shared
  • description="custom description": set a custom description that will be used on Social Media
  • force="no": when you assign the opengraph tag to e.g. a category blog menu, then all articles that are displayed in this category have the parameters from the ochopengraph tag set. When you set the parameter force="no" then the articles in the category blog will use the articles values instead of the menu values.
  • type="...": Set the og:type manually (default = article)

ochOpenGraph uses default Joomla Custom Fields to provide upload and select fields for Twitter Card Custom image and OpenGraph Custom image.

  1. In the Joomla Article manager add a new Fields Group:
    1. Title: e.g. ochOpenGraph
    2. Permissions: set 'Edit Custom Field Value' to 'Allowed' for group 'Author' (if you forget this, then the fields in this group will be read-only
  2. In the Joomla Article Manager add a new Field for the Custom twitter Card image:
    1. Title: e.g. Twitter Card image
    2. Type: media (but this can be any image type)
    3. Configure the field to your requirements
  3. Repeat step 2 for OpenGraph image
  4. In the ochOpenGraph plugin goto the [Opengraph Settings] tab
  5. Select the 'OpenGraph Custom image field': the field created in step 3
  6. ing the ochOpenGraph plugin goto [Twitter Card Settings] tab
  7. Select the 'Twitter Card Custom image field': the field created in step 2

When the Author is logged in he has a new tab when editing or creating an article. Now he is able to upload / select the image(s).

ochOpenGraph uses default Joomla Custom Fields to provide the possibility to specify a custom og:url value for an article.

  1. In the Joomla Article manager add a new Fields Group:
    1. Title: e.g. ochOpenGraph
    2. Permissions: set 'Edit Custom Field Value' to 'Allowed' for group 'Author' (if you forget this, then the fields in this group will be read-only
  2. In the Joomla Article Manager add a new Field for the og:url field:
    1. Title: e.g. ogURL
    2. Type: url
    3. Configure the field to your requirements
  3. In the ochOpenGraph plugin goto the [OpenGraph settings] tab
  4. Select the 'og:url Custom Field': the field created in step 2

When the Author is logged in he has a new tab when editing or creating an article. Now he is able to set the url that will be used in the og:url meta tag.

ochOpenGraph uses default Joomla Custom Fields to provide the possibility to specify a custom twitter:title and / or og:title value for an article.

  1. In the Joomla Article manager add a new Fields Group:
    1. Title: e.g. ochOpenGraph
    2. Permissions: set 'Edit Custom Field Value' to 'Allowed' for group 'Author' (if you forget this, then the fields in this group will be read-only
  2. In the Joomla Article Manager add a new Field for the twitter:title / og:title title field:
    1. Title: e.g. ogTitle
    2. Type: text
    3. Configure the field to your requirements
  3. In the ochOpenGraph plugin goto the [OpenGraph settings] tab
  4. Select the 'og:title Custom Field': the field created in step 2
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the [Twitter Cards settings] tab.

When the Author is logged in he has a new tab when editing or creating an article. Now he is able to set a custom title that will be used in the og:title / twitter:title meta tag.

ochOpenGraph uses default Joomla Custom Fields to provide the possibility to specify a custom twitter:description and / or og:description value for an article.

  1. In the Joomla Article manager add a new Fields Group:
    1. Title: e.g. ochOpenGraph
    2. Permissions: set 'Edit Custom Field Value' to 'Allowed' for group 'Author' (if you forget this, then the fields in this group will be read-only
  2. In the Joomla Article Manager add a new Field for the twitter:title / og:title title field:
    1. Title: e.g. ogDescription
    2. Type: textarea
    3. Configure the field to your requirements
  3. In the ochOpenGraph plugin goto the [OpenGraph settings] tab
  4. Select the 'og:description Custom Field': the field created in step 2
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the [Twitter Cards settings] tab.

When the Author is logged in he has a new tab when editing or creating an article. Now he is able to set a custom description that will be used in the og:description / twitter:description meta tag.

Agency Bundle - 12 months
Agency Bundle - 12 months
Supercharge your Joomla! toolbox with the Agency Bundle! Get all extensions plus 2 Hours of expert support – Subscribe today!
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ochOpenGraph - 12 months
ochOpenGraph - 12 months
Regain control of your content's Social Media presentation. Ensure your text and images shine on platforms like Facebook, X, LinkedIn.
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Tips & Tricks

Facebook Page ID

In order to indicate ownership to the articles shared on Facebook, a special fb:pages field is configurable (more information about why this is important and what this enables you to do: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/domain-verification)

You can find your page id here:

  1. goto your Facebook (company) page
  2. click 'About'
  3. scroll down: this is where your page-ID is listed
  4. copy and paste this ID into ochOpenGraph settings (OpenGraph Settings tab)

Facebook

Sharing best practices for websites (source: Facebook)

When your article is shared on Facebook, Facebook caches the contents of your article and it's meta tags. When changing the article / image / meta tags these changes are not reflected on Facebook.

Use this Facebook development tool to clear the cache of your shared article and to troubleshoot any issues with your og: parameters:

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

Linkedin

When your article is shared on Linkedin, Linkedin  caches the contents of your article and it's meta tags. When changing the article / image / meta tags these changes are not reflected on Linkedin.

Use the LinkedIn Post Inspector to discover hhow to optimize, refresh the cached data and debug in case of issues:

https://www.linkedin.com/post-inspector/

Twitter and TwitterCards

Important: for your Twitter Cards to work, your first have to whitelist Twitterbot in your site's robots.txt.

Failing to do that will prevent Twitter from building up your Twittercard.

in your robots.txt you should have some 'code' like:

User-agent: Twitterbot
Disallow:

You then need to instruct Twitter that you are ready for your Twittercards (whitelisting your domain). You do that here:

https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator

Image sizes

Facebook

Use images that are at least 1200 x 630 pixels for the best display on high resolution devices. At the minimum, you should use images that are 600 x 315 pixels to display link page posts with larger images. Images can be up to 8MB in size. (I use: 920px by 480px)
The minimum image size is 200 x 200 pixels.

More info: Sharing best practices for websites (source: Facebook)

Twitter

Image size: 800 x 418 pixels for 1.91:1 aspect ratio, 800 x 800 pixels for 1:1 aspect ratio (max 3mb) (I use: 920px by 480px)

More info: https://business.twitter.com/en/help/campaign-setup/advertiser-card-specifications.html (source: twitter)

Linkedin

LinkedIn status update OR blog post image size: scaled to 744px by 400px (I use: 920px by 480px)

More info: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/86782 (source: LinkedIn)

Important: Before asking for support please first check the FAQ and Tips and Trick in how to activate and troubleshoot Facebook / Linkedin and TwitterCards!

ochOpenGraph logs errors and warnings into its log file. You can find this log file in ./administrator/logs/plg_content_ochopengraph-log.php. You can view your logfiles with our free extension that you can download as part of your active subscription: ochLogFiles.

When setting your Joomla Site into debug mode or enabling debug in ochOpenGraph advanced settings the log will be more verbose: it will then also log debug and info messages. Note that additional logging may impact your site performance so only use this for troubleshooting purposes and leave it turned off when you are not having any issues that you need to investigate.

Technical support and feature requests via our forum (You need a valid subscription to be able to post)