A LinkedIn post preview is one of two things. Usually it is the link card: the image and title LinkedIn shows when a post contains a link. Sometimes it is your own post, and how much of the text shows before “see more”. Start with the caveat. LinkedIn builds the link card from your page’s tags, stores it, and reuses it, and its own help pages disagree on the details. Some were written years apart. This page quotes each one, gives its age, and says where they conflict. Then it shows how to fix a wrong card, how to refresh it, and how to check a link before you post.
If a card already looks wrong, look at what your page sends before you change anything. The free Open Graph checker reads the tags on any URL and previews the card on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Slack and WhatsApp. LinkedIn’s own Post Inspector then shows what LinkedIn made of it.
The image limits come from LinkedIn’s page for site owners[1] and the post limit from its page on posting[9]. All four are LinkedIn’s documented limits, not measurements.
Two things people mean by a LinkedIn post preview
The two previews behave differently, and the difference matters most after you press Post. You can edit the text of a published post. You cannot change its link card: LinkedIn says shared rich media “can’t be replaced, and new URLs won’t be able to display a new preview image”[5].
| What it is | Where it comes from | Fixable after posting? | How to check first | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The link card | Image and title from the page you link to | That page's Open Graph tags, fetched by LinkedIn | ✕No | An Open Graph checker, then Post Inspector |
| Your post text | Your words, cut off at 'see more' | What you type in the composer | ✓Yes | The composer itself. Lead with the point |
How LinkedIn builds a link preview
When you paste a link into a post, LinkedIn asks you to “allow a few seconds for a preview image to display”[2]. Behind that wait, LinkedIn’s services are “tasked with finding the metadata to populate the shared post’s title, image, and content provider”[14]. Its help page for site owners lists the tags “that must exist”: og:title, og:image, og:description and og:url[1]. These are Open Graph tags, the same format other platforms read for their previews.
LinkedIn’s engineers explained the next part when they launched Post Inspector in 2018. Their services use a page’s structured metadata “when possible”, such as Open Graph or oEmbed tags. They also check it, because “the provided image could be too large or too small, a title could be too long, and so on.” When a value fails, they fall back to “backup ways to interpret pages” and pick the best candidate[14].
That explains the most confusing result: an og:image that is set, but not used. The team wrote that it was often asked “why we chose a certain image over the one that was specified in the structured metadata”. Often, the specified image did not meet the criteria, so the service found a better candidate[14]. And if a page has no tags at all, LinkedIn says “content may not be pulled or other content from the site may be displayed”[3].
<!-- In the <head>, in the HTML your server sends --> <meta property="og:title" content="Your title, written for a feed" /> <meta property="og:description" content="One or two sentences on what the page gives the reader." /> <meta property="og:image" content="https://www.example.com/images/linkedin-card-1200x627.png" /> <meta property="og:image:width" content="1200" /> <meta property="og:image:height" content="627" /> <meta property="og:image:alt" content="What the image shows, in plain words" /> <meta property="og:url" content="https://www.example.com/blog/your-post" /> <meta property="og:type" content="article" />
That is five tags, not four. The Open Graph protocol itself names og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url as required on every page[15]. LinkedIn’s list swaps og:type for og:description, so send all five. The width, height and alt tags are optional in the protocol, though it says a page with an og:image “should specify og:image:alt”[15]. Every tag, and how the X card relates, is in the Open Graph protocol guide.
| What it does | What LinkedIn says | |
|---|---|---|
| og:title | The card's title | Must exist |
| og:image | The card's picture | Must exist. At least 1200 x 627, 5 MB at most |
| og:description | A one or two sentence summary | Must exist. The feed may not show it |
| og:url | The page's main address | Must exist |
| og:type | The kind of page, such as article | Not on LinkedIn's list. Required by the protocol |
Don’t rely on the description. LinkedIn’s own example labels it the description “that will show in the preview”[1]. Kinsta, a hosting company, reports that LinkedIn reads the description but displays only the title and image[17]. Write the title and image so they make sense on their own.
Write the title for a feed. Your og:title does not have to match your HTML title tag. The title tag is written for search results, which title tags covers. The og:title is read by someone scrolling past, next to a picture.
One of each tag. Two SEO plugins, or a theme and a plugin, can each print an og:image. The protocol says that when a tag repeats, “the first tag (from top to bottom) is given preference during conflicts”[15]. LinkedIn does not document which one it picks, so remove the duplicate.
Tags in the HTML your server sends. LinkedIn does not say whether its fetcher runs JavaScript, and we could not find any LinkedIn documentation for the fetcher at all. Tags that only appear after scripts run are a gamble. Put them in the HTML itself.
LinkedIn link preview image size
The core rules are consistent. LinkedIn’s page for site owners asks for images of at least 1200 by 627 pixels, no larger than 5 MB, at a recommended ratio of 1.91:1[1]. Its page on sharing links describes the preview frame the same way: 1.91:1, 1200 by 627[2].
The details are not. The same site owners’ page says images “less than 401 pixels wide display as a thumbnail image”[1]. The page for LinkedIn Page admins puts the line at 200 pixels, and adds that on mobile, images of other ratios “will show in full with subtle white padding”[6]. Then a newer page changes the picture. It says organic posts “will adopt the new smaller layout for third-party links”, recommends 3:2 or 16:9 for them, and warns that other ratios “could result in cropped images”[7]. Social Media Today reported that change rolling out in May 2024, with LinkedIn’s reason: “To help members stay on LinkedIn and engage with unique commentary”[16].
| What it says | Last updated | |
|---|---|---|
| Make your website shareable | og:title, og:image, og:description and og:url must exist. Image at least 1200 x 627, 5 MB max, 1.91:1. Under 401 px wide shows as a thumbnail | 2 years ago |
| Share articles or links | The preview frame is 1.91:1, 1200 x 627 | 2 years ago |
| Customize a Page post preview | More than 200 px wide, or it shows as a thumbnail. Mobile shows other ratios in full, with white padding | 2 years ago |
| Organic posts and Sponsored Content | Organic posts use a smaller layout for third-party links. Use 3:2 or 16:9, or images may be cropped | 11 months ago |
| Troubleshooting issues sharing URLs | After changing your tags, wait 48 hours | 3 years ago |
| Edit a shared post | The share box remembers the last link for three days. A posted card can't be changed | 4 years ago |
| Use Post Inspector to refresh URL | Refreshing changes the card for new posts only | 3 years ago |
Why the image or title is wrong
Seven causes cover most broken cards. Check them roughly in this order.
1. LinkedIn stored an older version. LinkedIn says that if a URL has been shared before, “the image might already have been stored in the cache and that’s what you see”. That applies to posts, messages and articles alike[4]. You fixed the page; LinkedIn is still showing what it saw last time.
2. The tags are missing, duplicated or added by a script. Check the raw HTML, not what your browser shows after scripts run. The snippet further down does this in two lines.
3. The image fails LinkedIn’s checks. Too narrow, and it becomes a thumbnail[1]. Too large or too small for LinkedIn’s criteria, and LinkedIn may choose another image from the page[14].
4. LinkedIn cannot fetch the image. LinkedIn’s note on this: “your website may be blocking us from pulling the image or the image may be located on a protected directory or website”[1]. Bot protection, firewalls, login walls and hotlink protection can all do this. Known Agents, a third-party bot directory, lists the fetcher’s user agent as LinkedInBot/1.0[18], so that is the name to look for in your bot rules and logs. If the page or the image redirects, the redirect checker shows every hop. Point og:image straight at the final file.
5. A certificate problem. For LinkedIn Pages, LinkedIn says a “cannot display preview” error “may be due to issues with the landing page’s SSL certificate”[8].
6. Spaces in the URL. “URLs with spaces in them can’t be shared on LinkedIn and will result in an error”[3]. Encode or remove them.
7. The post went out before the fix. A refresh does not reach posts that already exist[4], and editing a post changes only its text[5].
Refresh a stale preview with LinkedIn Post Inspector
Post Inspector is LinkedIn’s own tool for this, at linkedin.com/post-inspector[13]. LinkedIn’s steps are short: open Post Inspector, “Enter the URL you want to share”, and “Confirm that the preview window shows the correct content”[4].
It also tells you why. LinkedIn’s engineers built it to show “when we last updated our information about their content, and what values we extracted for the metadata”, and to give feedback on “which criterion wasn’t met, and what the criterion actually is”[14]. So if Post Inspector shows a different image from your og:image, read its note on that field before you change anything else.
How long does LinkedIn keep a card if you do nothing? Its pages disagree again. One says to allow 48 hours from the last share, or after a developer changes the tags[3]. Another says the share box remembers the last link you shared for three days[5]. Many third-party guides say seven days; we did not find that number on any LinkedIn page we read. With Post Inspector, you don’t have to wait for any of them.
Clear your own caches first. If your site sits behind a CDN or a page cache, purge it before you inspect. Otherwise LinkedIn may fetch the old HTML again and store the old card for another round. If an old image keeps coming back, upload the new one under a new file name and update og:image. LinkedIn does not document how it caches images, but a new address cannot match an old entry.
Fix a broken LinkedIn preview in six steps
Work through these in order. Steps 1 and 2 find most problems before you open LinkedIn at all.
Sources for the steps: LinkedIn’s tag and image requirements[1], its certificate note[8], Post Inspector[4] and editing posts[5].
From a terminal, curl does steps 1 and 2:
# 1. Fetch the page with LinkedIn's user agent and list the og: tags in the raw HTML curl -sSL -A "LinkedInBot/1.0 (compatible; Mozilla/5.0; Apache-HttpClient +http://www.linkedin.com)" -o page.html https://www.example.com/blog/your-post grep -io '<meta[^>]*og:[^>]*>' page.html # 2. Check the image itself: status, type and size in bytes curl -sSI https://www.example.com/images/linkedin-card-1200x627.png | grep -iE "^HTTP|content-type|content-length"
The first command sends LinkedIn’s user agent string, but from your own computer, not LinkedIn’s servers. It shows how your server treats that name. It cannot show a block based on LinkedIn’s IP addresses. If grep finds no tags, they are missing from the HTML, or a script adds them later. On Windows, run curl.exe.
How to preview LinkedIn post text before you publish
Now the other meaning. LinkedIn’s help for creating a post describes the composer, who can see and comment, and a clock icon to schedule a post for a later date. It describes no separate preview step[9]. The composer is the preview. A post can be up to 3,000 characters; past that, LinkedIn points you to its article publishing tool[9].
Where “see more” falls. LinkedIn does not publish this for ordinary posts. The numbers online are measurements by tool makers, and they disagree. Postformatter says roughly the first 210 characters or 3 lines on desktop and around 140 characters in the mobile app, and notes that “LinkedIn does not publish the number”[19]. Taplio puts desktop at up to roughly 250 characters, and mobile at 140 to 210[20]. The one truncation figure LinkedIn does publish is for ads: up to 150 characters of introductory text “to avoid truncation”[12]. The practical rule is the same whichever number is right. Put the point of the post in the first line, and don’t open with blank lines.
Drafts. To come back to a post later, click Cancel in the composer, then “Save as draft”. The draft fills in next time you start a post[10].
Links inside the text. When you share a link longer than 26 characters, LinkedIn shortens it once you click Post. If you share an article and put no text after the link, the URL is hidden from the post[11].
That gives one rule for both previews. Typos in the text can be fixed after posting[5]. The card cannot. So check the link before you post, and read the text again afterwards.
Check a link before you post it
Two checks, in this order. First, what your page sends: the tags, the image, and whether a duplicate or missing tag will trip LinkedIn up. Second, what LinkedIn makes of it, in Post Inspector, which also refreshes the card for your next post.
Link cards, and LinkedIn in AI search
A link card is for people scrolling the feed. AI assistants are a different audience: they cite LinkedIn posts and articles themselves, and how often depends a lot on the topic. LinkedIn SEO for AI search covers the studies, which AI crawlers LinkedIn lets in, and what the cited content has in common. The same Open Graph tags also build your previews in messaging apps; WhatsApp link preview covers WhatsApp’s rules.
If you want to know whether LinkedIn is one of the sources AI answers lean on in your category, CoreCited’s Citation Analysis shows which domains AI answers cite for your own prompts. The free account tracks 5 prompts, and every limit is on the pricing page.
Questions people ask
How do I preview a LinkedIn post before posting?
For the text, the composer is the preview: LinkedIn's help for creating a post describes drafts and scheduling, but no separate preview step. For a link, paste the URL into LinkedIn's Post Inspector first. It shows the card LinkedIn will build, and it refreshes a card LinkedIn stored earlier.
Why is my LinkedIn link preview showing the wrong image?
Usually one of three things. LinkedIn stored the card from an earlier share, the page's og:image is missing or fails LinkedIn's rules, or LinkedIn could not fetch the image. Fix the tags, make sure the image opens without a login, then run the URL through Post Inspector and post again.
How do I refresh a LinkedIn link preview?
Open Post Inspector, enter the URL and check that the preview is right. LinkedIn says this updates the preview for new posts only. Posts already published keep the old card. Without Post Inspector, one LinkedIn help page says to wait 48 hours after changing your tags, and another says three days.
What image size does LinkedIn use for link previews?
LinkedIn's help asks for at least 1200 by 627 pixels, a 1.91:1 ratio and no more than 5 MB. A newer help page says organic posts now show third-party links in a smaller layout and recommends 3:2 or 16:9, so keep words and logos in the middle of the image.
Can I change the preview of a LinkedIn post after publishing?
No. LinkedIn lets you edit only the text of a published post. To change a shared link's preview, you must delete the post and create a new one. LinkedIn Page admins can set a custom image and title, but only while they create the post.
How many characters show before 'see more' on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn does not publish a number for ordinary posts. Tool makers who measured it disagree, and line breaks and screen size change it. The only truncation figure LinkedIn publishes is for ads: 150 characters of introductory text. Put the point of your post in its first line.