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I am trying to leverage the rich text messages with open graph meta tags. So I have included my meta tags in my website head and it passes all of the Facebook debug and iOS API validation tool.

Yet when I text the link to people either on Android or iOS it doesn't often work. It works typically with Facebook messenger

Does anyone know if this is a cell carrier issue or do I have something configured wrong? 

<meta property="fb:app_id" content="********" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://dameranchdesigns.com/" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Dame Ranch Designs" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Divinely inspired logo graphics and 
website design. A whole new way of being ... on the internet." />
<meta property="og:image"  
content="https://dameranchdesigns.com/images/logos/DRDSunLncropped.png" />
Kristin Yetter
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2 Answers2

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Yetter,

A couple of quick things to help you out here:

  1. Apple Support Open Graph for rich SMS messages only since iOS 10+, so make sure that the device you are testing the sent text message to is at least iOS 10 (or higher)

  2. Apple only supports og:title and og:image. It ignores the rest (so in your example above, og:description is completely disregarded. Furthermore, if your og:image is a gif image, Apple doesn't support that.

  3. Your url in the text message needs to be on it's own "word" meaning there needs to be at least a space between it and any other word in the text. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, it needs to specify a scheme, so either: http:// or https://.

  4. You can only have one hyperlink to your site with the og:tags. More than one shuts this functionality down.

  5. Lastly, I don't believe Android supports such rich messaging functionality in it's SMSs (at least not with Open Graph) -- at least as far as I know as of this writing (Nov-2017). It would be great if they adopted OG as a standard.

So for example These wouldn't work:

  • you were invited. You can join on: grapevite.com //no scheme present
  • you were invited on http://grapevite.com. Care to join? //Link is between text.

Whereas these would work:

  • you were invited on Grapevite. http://grapevite.com
  • http://grapevite.com. The world's premier platform for creating, sharing and joining experiences

Reference Reading:

Some sites like these would provide you with some insight as to the above: https://uplandsoftware.com/mobile-messaging/resources/blog/what-ios-10-means-for-mobile-messaging/ https://www.tatango.com/blog/ios-10-what-sms-marketers-need-to-know-and-do/

Awah Teh
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  • It appears there is(was) a bug in apple ios too. I found it on tatango.com as you referenced above. If receiver has never received anything from sender's number before, it won't display. But send a second test or send an intro text first and then the link and it will work. [Apple iOS Bug is Blocking Hyperlinks in Text Messages](https://www.tatango.com/blog/apple-ios-bug-is-blocking-hyperlinks-in-text-messages/) – Kristin Yetter Nov 09 '17 at 22:26
  • Nice one. Thanks for sharing that insight. Cheers – Awah Teh Nov 10 '17 at 18:05
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    I had to respond because I think I stumbled on another element. If I am receiving a link on my iPhone from a sender who is not in my contacts, the link is not enabled and I do not see the preview (you will know this because there will be a "report junk" message). To enable the link preview, I need to respond to this text and voila, it is displayed. Just respond with yes and it will work. – Kristin Yetter Dec 03 '17 at 16:40
2

A bit of an update for anyone dealing with this mid-2019. I was dealing with this today. I was trying to specify a certain thumbnail to be shown in the rich message preview across Facebook messenger, iOS messages and android messages.

Using actual code from the website I was working on. Be sure to replace content with your own.

These 4 tags made it work for me on Facebook messenger and iOS messages:

<meta property="og:title" content="Software to manage leasing and rental applications" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://geteagle.com.au/products/leasing-tools/" />
<meta property="og:image" itemprop="image" content="https://geteagle.com.au/site/templates/images/logo-og-white-big.jpg" />

For some reason, android messages refused to show the thumbnail I specified. I did a lot of research and tried everything I could find in this other question: Showing Thumbnail for link in WhatsApp || og:image meta-tag doesn't work

My tags bloated to 9 (8 meta, 1 link), but it was actually the link tag that made it work in android messages:

<link itemprop="thumbnailUrl" href="https://geteagle.com.au/site/templates/images/logo-og-white-big.jpg">

I'm not sure if the other tags are needed in addition to the link tag to make it work on android messages, but here is the full block if you want to try:

<meta property="og:title" content="Software to manage leasing and rental applications" />
<meta property=”og:description” content="Eagle offers a suite of of leasing tools and application management features to power-up your rental team!" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://geteagle.com.au/products/leasing-tools/" />
<meta property="og:image" itemprop="image" content="https://geteagle.com.au/site/templates/images/logo-og-white-big.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image:secure_url" itemprop="image" content="https://geteagle.com.au/site/templates/images/logo-og-white-big.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image:width" content="1000" />
<meta property="og:image:height" content="500" />

<link itemprop="thumbnailUrl" href="https://geteagle.com.au/site/templates/images/logo-og-white-big.jpg">

Many thanks to this particular answer from the question mentioned above that resolved my frustrating situation.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

bot19
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