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Include Social Link Previews in the Page Handoff
Assign preview titles, descriptions, images, canonical URLs, and cache checks for shared website links.
**Published: September 10, 2026**
A shared page may appear with a cropped image, an old title, or no useful description. Make preview metadata part of page acceptance rather than a launch-day surprise.
Prepare a preview record
For each template, provide the approved title, description, absolute canonical URL, image asset, image dimensions, alt text where supported, and fallback rule. Use an existing licensed asset and identify the owner who approves later changes.
Keep metadata aligned
The preview can be shorter than the page heading, but it should identify the same content. Define how defaults work and which pages require unique images. Prevent staging domains and unpublished asset URLs from entering production metadata.
Inspect the delivered HTML
Request the production page without relying on client-side rendering and compare its metadata with the record. Fetch the image directly, inspect status and content type, and sample the result in approved platform tools. Record cache refresh attempts separately because an old platform preview does not prove the current HTML is wrong.
Further reading
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Review preview metadata whenever the page identity or hero asset changes.