Question Understanding WhatsAPP OpenGraph data
- Juan Luis Rodríguez
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Posts: 1
- Thank you received: 0
For the last two months I have been struggling with the way that WhatsApp uses the OpenGraph data provided and I would really appreciate your support here. During this time I have bought and tested different OpenGraph plugins for Joomla but for the moment with no success.
Till last September 30th, I was using a commercial component in my site ( www.quesomecanico.com) for generating OpenGraph tags, it was working perfectly during years. However at that date (September 30th), WhatsApp implemented something that starting on October the 1st prevents larger images to be used as preview images in the opengraph data ( I enclose an screenshot of my last post in whatsapp in September that shows the images previews with images of 900 KB, 1.2 MB, 2.0 MB, or even bigger...)
However, from October 1st I have been unable to have images previews in WhatsApp if the images were bigger that 300KB, moreover I'm only able to share links with opengraph data in whatsapp (without image if the images is bigger than 300KB) if I use directly the mobile app, as with Windows WhatsApp or with the web browser based versions it doesn't recognize even the Title or the description fields (yes I have completely removed caches, an even uninstall WhatsApp app either in the computer and the mobile phone).
I have bought ochOpenGraph (still not install) thinking if it offers any possibility for providing alternative images of less than 300KB without having to reduce the quality of the photos in my articles. I always used the first image of each article as the opengraph image for either twitter cards or Facebook image. I'm thinking on having somekind of automation generating thumbnails < 300 KB compliance with WhatsAPP of the 1st image of each article, placing them in the same image folder that the original with a suffix or prefix in the name and instruct automatically ochOpenGraph to use always the "small" version of the fist image of each article.
Do you have any idea for solving this?
Do you know what was changed in Whatsapp side by end of September to prevent larger images being previewed?
Thanks in advance for your help and support
Juan Luis
Please Log in to join the conversation.
- Ruud van Lent
- Offline
- Posts: 1464
- Thank you received: 100
What I did read is that WhatsApp uses square images where other platforms use non-square images. Maybe that is something you can look into
ochOpenGraph allows for the usage of Custom Fields for the image, so you can have a different image offered via a Custom Field on the article that will be used for og:image. That way your article images are not changed.I have bought ochOpenGraph (still not install) thinking if it offers any possibility for providing alternative images of less than 300KB without having to reduce the quality of the photos in my articles. I always used the first image of each article as the opengraph image for either twitter cards or Facebook image. I'm thinking on having somekind of automation generating thumbnails < 300 KB compliance with WhatsAPP of the 1st image of each article, placing them in the same image folder that the original with a suffix or prefix in the name and instruct automatically ochOpenGraph to use always the "small" version of the fist image of each article.
You can have ochOpenGraph even use custom images that have a specific name syntax. That way you can e.g. just upload the images to a directory on your server and ochOpenGraph will automatically take the correct image for the article.
As said, we can only place the tags on the page, what the Social media platforms do with it is up to them. There are bound to be differences between browsers / apps / operating systems (iOS, Android), etc.Do you have any idea for solving this?
Do you know what was changed in Whatsapp side by end of September to prevent larger images being previewed?
Thanks in advance for your help and support
Juan Luis
Note that when you set a specific image for whatsapp (e.g. small / square), that image will then be set as og:image and as such also used by linkedin, facebook, etc.
Hope this helps
Please Log in to join the conversation.