How Does Facebook Choose Text for Links?
When you attach a link to external content to a Facebook status update, such as a Web page or a YouTube video, Facebook posts a text title and description alongside the link, which describes its content to your friend network. If you aren't satisfied with the text Facebook pulls by default, change it to better suit your audience.
-
Source of Link Title and Description
-
After you click the "Attach" button to attach the link to your status, Facebook pulls a title and description for the content of the link, which posts to the news feed with the link. The source of these text items are the "meta title" and "meta description" elements of the page's HTML document. The primary purpose of the meta title and description are to serve as the title and description of a page for automated "Web crawling" robots from search engines like Google and Bing!
Changing Meta Title and Description
-
If the title and description that come up when you post a link to Facebook don't accurately describe the content you post -- and you own or have access to the HTML code for that content -- you should change the meta title and description of the content, so as to avoid the erroneous description being passed on to search engines. After logging into your site's "File Manager," click the HTML file for the page you attached and open it in the HTML editor. The meta title and description are located near the top of the HTML document in the "header" section.
-
Changing Text Within Facebook
-
If you don't own the content or don't care to change its official meta title or description, it's possible to change the text title and description within Facebook. Namely, after clicking the "Attach" button, click the mouse on either the title or description to highlight the element of your choice. Type in a new title or description to replace the existing ones, then click the "Share" button to share the link with a custom title and/or description.
Thumbnail Image
-
In addition to the title and description, Facebook pulls thumbnail versions of all images on a given Web page, which display alongside the title and description in news feed posts. When you click "Attach," a small version of the first image on the page appears on the left side of the post, with a "left" and "right" arrow underneath it. Toggle through the arrows to choose the thumbnail that best complements the link if the default one isn't to your satisfaction.
-
