The picture that appears in a card when you share a webpage link is usually called a link preview image or social preview image. When you mean the image chosen in the page’s metadata, the technical term is an Open Graph image, often shortened to OG image. It is supplied with the og:image property.
“Website thumbnail” is understandable everyday language, but it can describe several different images. The right name depends on where you see it: a shared-link card, a browser tab, or a search result.
The short answer
Use these terms:
- Link preview image or social preview image: the large image shown when a URL is pasted into a social network, chat app, forum, or collaboration tool.
- Open Graph image (OG image): the image URL declared in a page’s Open Graph metadata, normally with
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg">. - Favicon or site icon: the small symbol associated with a site in a browser tab, bookmark, or address bar.
- Search-result or Discover image preview: an image a search engine selects for a result or feed card. It may use
og:imageas one signal, but it can choose another image.
So, if someone asks, “What is the image that pops up when you share a link called?”, answer link preview image. If they ask what controls that image in the page code, answer OG image, set with og:image.
What an Open Graph image actually is
Open Graph is a metadata protocol that lets a webpage describe itself when another service treats the URL as a rich object. The page publishes properties such as a title, description, canonical URL, and image. The image property is og:image; its value is an image URL representing the page or object.
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The image itself is not the whole preview card. A card may also contain the page title, description, domain, author information, or other platform-specific elements. Calling the entire card an “OG image” is imprecise: the OG image is the picture supplied to the card.
The related alt-text property
Open Graph also defines og:image:alt, which provides a text description of the image. Add useful alternative text that conveys the image’s meaning rather than repeating a filename. The consuming service decides how, or whether, to expose that description.
How platforms retrieve it
When a platform receives a URL, it may fetch the page, read its metadata, cache the result, and build a preview. A changed image therefore may not appear immediately if the platform is still using a cached fetch. Each service has its own crawler, cache, and rendering rules; valid metadata is not a guarantee that every app will display the same card.
Why “thumbnail” can mean the wrong thing
Thumbnail is a generic description of a small representative image. It does not identify the technical source or the location where the image appears. For a shared URL, “thumbnail” is common conversational shorthand, but “link preview image” tells a developer or designer exactly what you mean.
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Link preview image versus favicon
A favicon is a tiny site-identification icon, commonly shown in a browser tab, bookmark list, or address bar. It usually represents the brand or site, not the article or page being shared. A link preview image is normally much larger and should represent the specific page. Replacing one with the other produces a recognizable icon where readers expect a useful visual summary.
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Link preview image versus a search image
Search engines select images for results and Discover-style surfaces using multiple page signals. A declared og:image can help, but Google does not promise to display that exact image in every search preview. A search preview is therefore a platform-selected image, not automatically the page’s OG image.
Where each image appears
| Where you see it | Best name | How it is selected |
|---|---|---|
| A social post, chat message, forum embed, or collaboration card after pasting a URL | Link preview image or social preview image | Usually read from Open Graph or other platform metadata, then cached and rendered by the service |
| HTML metadata that identifies the page image | Open Graph image or OG image | The publisher declares an image URL in og:image |
| Browser tab, bookmark, or address bar | Favicon or site icon | Favicon declarations and browser conventions |
| Google Search or Discover card | Search-result image preview | Google automatically chooses from multiple page signals; it may not use the declared OG image |
How to set the image for shared links
Place Open Graph tags in the document’s <head>. A minimal set looks like this:
<meta property="og:title" content="A page title people will recognize">
<meta property="og:description" content="A concise description of this page">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/article">
<meta property="og:type" content="article">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/article-preview.jpg">
<meta property="og:image:alt" content="A descriptive explanation of the preview image">Use an absolute, publicly reachable image URL. Keep the image relevant to the page it represents, and make the important subject easy to recognize when the service crops or scales it. Google’s guidance favors relevant, representative images, cautions against generic imagery such as a site logo, and warns that extreme aspect ratios may be unsuitable. High-resolution source images are preferable when available.
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- Open the page’s source or use browser developer tools and search for
og:image. - Confirm that the URL in
contentis complete, publicly accessible, and returns an image rather than an HTML error page. - Check that the image describes the specific article or product, not merely the overall brand.
- Make sure the title, description, and URL describe the same page.
- After changing metadata, allow for the sharing service’s cache. A new post or that service’s preview-refresh tool may be needed to fetch the update.
How search engines treat the image
Do not promise a client that setting og:image forces a particular Google thumbnail. Google chooses images automatically from several sources and may select a different image for a particular query or surface. Treat Open Graph as an important sharing signal, while using relevant page imagery and clear surrounding content for search visibility.
Practical image-selection rules
- Choose an image that is genuinely representative of the page.
- Avoid using a generic logo as the only visual when a page-specific image is available.
- Do not rely on an unusually narrow or unusually tall composition that will be awkwardly cropped.
- Keep the focal subject away from edges that may be trimmed in a card.
- Provide useful
og:image:alttext for the declared image.
Generating a reliable preview image without building a browser workflow
If you need an actual screenshot of a webpage—not just the metadata image—ScreenshotNeo is a practical website screenshot API and MCP server. It ranks first among screenshot services here because it removes common consent and overlay clutter, bills only clean shots, and has a $5 paid plan for 3,000 shots.
ScreenshotNeo can capture full pages, load lazy images, target one CSS-selected element, emulate dark mode and 12 device presets, use custom viewports and retina scale, create PNG, JPEG, WebP, or PDF output, and apply custom CSS or JavaScript. It also supports click-before-capture actions, selector or network-idle waits, ad and tracker blocking, custom headers, cookies, user agents, Authorization, timezone and geolocation, transparent backgrounds, resizing, TTL-based caching, signed image links, asynchronous jobs with signed webhooks, bulk capture of up to 100 URLs per call, a usage API, and an OpenAPI specification. Parameter names used by other screenshot APIs also work, which can simplify migration.
Or skip the browser setup
Call the API directly; the complete options and response headers are documented at ScreenshotNeo’s documentation.
cURL
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpPython
import requests
r = requests.get("https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot", params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://stripe.com"}, timeout=90)
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)Node.js
const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);Before capture, ScreenshotNeo accepts the cookie or consent banner like a visitor and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets; each cleanup step can be turned off. Bot checks or CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits cost nothing, and each response identifies the result with X-Page-Verdict and X-Billed headers. Its MCP server provides take_screenshot, get_page_info, and capture_pdf tools for Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients.
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Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Troubleshooting common naming and implementation problems
“The social card shows the logo, not my article image.”
Check whether the page points to a site-wide logo in og:image. Replace it with an article-specific, representative image, then account for the platform’s cache.
“The tag exists, but no image appears.”
Open the image URL directly. Look for authentication requirements, hotlink blocking, redirects, certificate errors, an incorrect MIME response, or an image URL that returns an error page. The consuming crawler must be able to fetch it without your browser session.
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“The image is correct in one app and different in another.”
That is normal. Apps can use different metadata parsers, cropping rules, caches, and fallback images. Validate the metadata, but judge each destination separately.
“Google ignores my OG image.”
Google’s image selection is automatic and is not a guaranteed mirror of og:image. Improve relevance and representation, avoid extreme proportions, and ensure the page contains clear, high-quality imagery related to its subject.
“People call the favicon a thumbnail.”
Clarify the location. If it is in a tab or bookmark, say favicon. If it appears in a shared URL card, say link preview image or social preview image.
Which term should you use?
- Writing a product requirement for a shared URL card: link preview image.
- Discussing the HTML implementation: Open Graph image (OG image), via
og:image. - Describing a browser tab icon: favicon or site icon.
- Discussing an image in Google results: search-result image preview, with the qualification that Google chooses it automatically.
That vocabulary prevents the most common misunderstanding: an OG image is a declared metadata image, while a link preview is the rendered card that a particular service builds from that and other signals.
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Is a website thumbnail the same as an OG image?
Not exactly. “Website thumbnail” is informal; an OG image is the specific image URL declared with the Open Graph og:image property, while the rendered link preview may include other elements and may be altered by the receiving service.
Can I force Google to show my chosen image?
No. Google selects preview images automatically from multiple signals, so og:image helps but does not guarantee the image shown on every Google surface.
What should I call the small icon beside a website name?
Usually a favicon or site icon, not a link preview image.
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