Question Understanding WhatsAPP OpenGraph data

  • Juan Luis Rodríguez
  • Topic Author
  • Offline
More
2 years 3 months ago #1886 by Juan Luis Rodríguez
Understanding WhatsAPP OpenGraph data was created by Juan Luis Rodríguez
Hello,

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
 
Attachments:

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
2 years 3 months ago #1887 by Ruud van Lent
Replied by Ruud van Lent on topic Understanding WhatsAPP OpenGraph data

Hello,

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).

Hi Juan Luis, thanks for your subscription and inquiry, I have not seen any information regarding changes to the image handling in WhatsApp. Unfortunately that doesn't mean that there where no changes. Only thing we can do is offer the information the Social media pltforms need, how they handle that information is not in our control.

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

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.

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.
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.

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

 

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.
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.