Open Graph meta tags
Open Graph meta tags control how a link to your page looks when it's shared: its title, description and image in the preview card.
Open Graph meta tags are lines of HTML that control how a link to your page looks when someone shares it. They set the title, description and image in the preview card you see in social feeds and messaging apps. Facebook created the Open Graph protocol, and most platforms that show link previews read it.
Search engines don't rank pages by them. What they affect is whether people click a link someone shared.
The main tags
Four tags cover most pages:
<meta property="og:title" content="Oak dining table, seats 6">
<meta property="og:description" content="Solid English oak, made to order in Yorkshire.">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://harrowandpine.example/img/oak-table.jpg">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://harrowandpine.example/tables/oak-6">og:type and og:site_name are common too. Some networks have their own tags as well, but fall back to Open Graph when they're missing.
What goes wrong without them
When a page has no Open Graph tags, each app guesses. It might pick your logo, a cookie banner or a random photo from the footer, and the first line of your navigation as the description.
For example, a customer shares Harrow & Pine's new dining table in a group chat. Without the tags, the preview shows "Home | Shop | About" and a tiny icon. With them, it shows the table, its name and the line about English oak, and three friends tap through.
Open Graph and AI search
Open Graph tags are made for link previews. Search engines don't rank pages by them, and the AI platforms don't say whether they read them when they answer. If they do, they'll find the same title and description you wrote for people, so it pays to keep them accurate.
Where they clearly help is after the answer. People share links they found through AI answers like any others, and a clean preview makes that share work harder.