To show a thumbnail when someone shares a government website URL on WhatsApp, add Open Graph metadata to that page’s HTML <head>. The key field is og:image, which must point to an image WhatsApp can access publicly. The metadata must appear within the first 300 KB of the HTML response.
Add Open Graph metadata to the page
Put the metadata in the HTML head of the exact page people will share—not just the homepage. Use a title, a concise description, the page’s canonical URL, and an absolute URL for the preview image:
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<head>
<meta property="og:title" content="Page title">
<meta property="og:description" content="A short description of this page.">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://www.example.gov/page">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://www.example.gov/images/page-preview.jpg">
</head>Replace the sample text, domain and image with values for the actual page. Keep the tags in the server-returned HTML head, near the beginning of the response. Meta’s WhatsApp developer guidance, updated November 5, 2025 and accessed through a documentation mirror, specifies that the head containing the metadata must appear within the first 300 KB of HTML; it does not require the entire page to fit within that limit. Read the WhatsApp metadata guidance.
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Meet WhatsApp’s image and metadata requirements
- Image size: Keep the image under 600 KB.
- Image dimensions: Make it at least 300 pixels wide, with a width-to-height ratio no greater than 4:1.
- Image address: Use a complete, absolute URL, and make sure the image can be fetched without signing in.
- Text fields: Provide nonempty values for
og:title,og:descriptionandog:url. The documented description guidance says 80 characters will suffice for the one or two lines shown. - Canonical URL: Set
og:urlto the clean, canonical page address rather than a URL carrying tracking or session parameters.
Set the fields in your government website CMS
If your CMS has per-page social sharing or Open Graph fields, enter the title, description, canonical URL and image there, then publish the page. The precise labels and menu path depend on the CMS. If it only offers site-wide metadata, ask the site administrator or developer to add page-specific values to the page template; otherwise, different pages may produce the same preview. The important check is the resulting HTML response, not merely what appears in the editor.
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Test the exact page link in WhatsApp
- Open the page while signed out, or in a private browser window, and confirm that the page and image are publicly accessible.
- Inspect the raw page source or server response. Confirm the Open Graph tags are inside
<head>and appear early in the HTML. - Paste the exact URL you intend to share into a WhatsApp conversation and wait for the preview card to appear before sending.
- If you change metadata or the image, test the same page URL again and inspect the generated card.
A correct setup does not guarantee that every share will display a preview. WhatsApp may not show a card in a particular case, so verify the precise URL and result before relying on it.
Troubleshoot a missing WhatsApp thumbnail
- The tags are missing from the source: The CMS may not have published the changes, or the tags may be added only after the page loads in the browser. Check the server-returned HTML and arrange for the metadata to be present in its head.
- The tags are present but the preview text or URL is wrong: Check for empty values and make sure the tags describe the page being shared. Set
og:urlto its canonical address. - The image does not appear: Check that
og:imageis an absolute URL and that the image loads without authentication. Confirm it is under 600 KB, at least 300 pixels wide, and no wider than a 4:1 ratio. - The preview does not appear for a URL with parameters: Try the canonical page URL itself. Confirm the tags identify that page, then paste the exact intended link into WhatsApp again.
- The preview still fails after checks: Record the exact URL and observed result, and check the page response and image response separately. A successful test in one browser context does not establish that WhatsApp can retrieve both resources.
Or skip the browser setup
ScreenshotNeo is a website screenshot API and MCP server for developers. It can capture a page as an image or PDF, but it does not change a government page’s Open Graph metadata or make WhatsApp display a link card. For checking how a page renders, one GET request can save a screenshot:
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