Use meta description as post description, when sharing to Facebook

Support
#1

Hi! I’m using dropcap, and because of that, as I understand, it’s not possible to show first letter in excerpt. I’ve found a workaround, and that isn’t an issue for me.

What I don’t like is that first letter isn’t showing also in Facebook post description. Is it possible to “ask” Facebook to take meta description instead, not the first sentence of the article? Because then there would be normal looking description.

Here is an example with the first letter missing:

#2

Hello @kasparsmisins,

Thanks for asking. :slight_smile:

You can use Yoast SEO plugin to optimize Facebook share contents. Please make sure to enable open graph in Yoast SEO. For more information, please take a look at following tutorials:

https://kb.yoast.com/kb/getting-open-graph-for-your-articles/
https://yoast.com/social-media-optimization-with-yoast-seo/

Thanks.

#3

Thanks! Found it, updated the description text, but Facebook is till showing me first line of the article (with missing first letter) not meta description or description I’ve entered in Open Graph settings (provided by Yoast) of my post.

Do I need to - ENABLE OPEN GRAPH - in settings of X, if I’ve enabled it in Yoast SEO?

#4

Hi @kasparsmisins,

The first letter is a drop cap element which essentially not part of the text. And facebook scraper will pick a content with more information. So it’s basically just a letter E, not a complete text and just made it look as a part of a whole through design.

And since you already changed the description in SEO Yoast social meta, then what you need to do is clear the facebook cache. Please check this https://kb.yoast.com/kb/facebook-sharing-updated-details/ (How to update Facebook sharing data)

And please don’t activate the theme’s opengraph, you should only use one instance of it at a time.

Thanks!

#5

Thank you, Rad!

I checked that I had activated Open Graph in the settings of my theme (X). And through Yoast.

Now my posts have og:description (and not only that) twice.

I disabled Open Graphy for X. It’s active only through Yoast now. Is it possible to remove dublicate og:description tags?

#6

Hey @kasparsmisins,

I checked your site and there is only 1 og:description. Please clear your browser’s cache and also FB cache like what @Rad said then test again.

Since X Open Graph was disabled, there’s nothing in the theme that is left related to Open Graph so if you have duplicate OG, it must come from third party sources. You would need to try for a plugin conflict in that case. You can do this by deactivating all third party plugins, and seeing if the problem remains. If it’s fixed, you’ll know a plugin caused the problem, and you can narrow down which one by reactivating them one at a time.

Thanks.

#7

Ok, I see. I’ll check with other plugins, if you say it can’t be x-related anymore.

But, yes, the problem remains. Because posts (I did the same you do; inspect) have og:description twice. One is from meta description, another one - first two senteces of the post or so.

Home page - yes, it has og:description only one time.

#8

It’s coming from a third party plugin. Try deactivating social plugins.

#9

Thanks! I’ll try.

#10

You’re welcome.

#11

Problem is solved. I found that my social media sharing pluging was creating them. I disabled it in its settings, and everything works as I wanted it.

#12

Glad to hear it’s sorted and thanks for letting us know.

Cheers!

#13

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