Why does Facebook show the wrong image when I share a page?

If you post a page to Facebook and have specified an image but find Facebook shows a different one, there could be a few reasons why.

1. Your image is too small

Facebook requires the specified image to meet its minimum size guidelines. If your image is too small, it will attempt to choose another one that appears on the same page and is large enough.

As their guidelines can change from time to time, we recommend checking out these resources for up-to-date information:

• Facebook's official guidelines
• Sprout Social's "always up-to-date guide to social media image sizes"
• Buffer's "ideal Social media image sizes guide"

2. There's another image on the page that is considerably larger

If another image on the same page is larger than the main image you have selected for your article, Facebook may opt for the larger image instead - even if your chosen image meets Facebook's guidelines! Yes, this is frustrating, and there's little explanation or documentation out there to explain why.

A common issue we've seen is that large images are used for station staff ("on air now") and those may then appear as the image for a news article on Facebook. See our disclaimer on this issue.

Our advice is to ensure that your main article image is always the largest image on the page and that other images like "on air now" are no bigger than they need to be.

Telling Facebook that you've changed an image

If you change an image and re-share the same page URL, Facebook may still continue to show the wrong image because it stores a copy in its cache.

To clear their cache, submit your page URL in their Debugger tool. It will show you what they currently know about your page, and you should be able to click a button labelled "Scrape Again". This will update their cache and store the new image.

Default image

You can specify a Facebook default image for your site by going to "Site Settings" in the main menu and then selecting "Images and Icons."

However, this will only be used if you don't specify a specific Facebook image for a page. If this image is also too small, it will not be used, and Facebook will pick another image from the page.