Your link, before you share it.
A grey WhatsApp card kills clicks. Paste any URL and see how it looks on WhatsApp, LinkedIn, X and Google, plus the tags to fix.
What your link looks like the moment somebody shares it.
Four renderings from one set of tags
WhatsApp, LinkedIn, X and the Google result, drawn from the Open Graph and Twitter Card tags on your page. Each platform crops and truncates differently, which is why a card can look right in one place and broken in another.
The tags themselves, listed
Title, description, image, image dimensions, site name, card type. Where one is missing, the preview shows what the platform falls back to — usually your domain name in grey, which nobody taps.
Image problems, before they embarrass you
An image that is too small, too heavy, the wrong shape, or served from a URL that needs a login will silently not appear. All four are checked.
A grey card is a missing image tag, nine times out of ten
Add og:image with an absolute URL — https://yoursite.com/image.jpg, not /image.jpg — at 1200×630. Relative paths are the single most common cause.
Platforms cache aggressively
Once WhatsApp or LinkedIn has fetched your link, it keeps the old card for days. Fix the tags, then use the platform’s own debugger to force a refresh before you decide it did not work.
Write the description for a human on a phone
About 100 characters survive on WhatsApp. Put the reason to tap in the first sentence, not the brand name.
Before you trust the number.
Why does my link look fine on LinkedIn but grey on WhatsApp?
Different fallbacks and different caches. LinkedIn will often use the first large image on the page when og:image is missing; WhatsApp will not. Setting og:image explicitly fixes both.
What image size should I use?
1200×630 pixels, under 300 KB, with the important part in the middle — every platform crops the edges differently.
Does any of this affect my Google ranking?
Not directly. It affects how many people tap the link when it is shared, and that is what turns a shared link into traffic.
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