Why Your Website Link Preview Shows the Wrong Image (and How to Fix It)

You just updated your website with a new photo, a new logo, or a fresh homepage design. You text the link to a client to show it off. And the preview that appears in iMessage is the old version. The one from three months ago. The one with the headshot you replaced.

This is not a bug in your website. The image is correct if you visit the actual URL. The problem is caching. When you share a link, Apple (iMessage), Google (Android Messages), Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all fetch a snapshot of your page and store it. Once stored, they serve that cached version for days or weeks, sometimes longer. Updating the image file on your server does nothing because these platforms never re-check the original.

The fix is a version parameter. Instead of pointing your link preview metadata to /og-image.png, you point it to /og-image.png?v=2. The file on your server has not changed. But the URL is different, and that is all these platforms care about. A different URL means a different image to fetch. Every time you update your preview image, you bump the number: ?v=3, ?v=4, and so on.

The image itself matters too. Link previews display at 1200 by 630 pixels. If your image is not that exact ratio, platforms will crop it unpredictably. iMessage crops from the center. Facebook crops from the top. A headshot that looks great as a square gets its forehead cut off in a link preview. We design every client preview image at exactly 1200 by 630 with the important content centered and away from the edges.

The same principle applies to favicons and the Apple touch icon. When someone saves your website to their iPhone home screen, iOS uses a file called apple-touch-icon.png to create the app icon. Without it, the phone takes a tiny screenshot of your page, which almost always looks terrible. The icon should be exactly 180 by 180 pixels, use your logo on a solid background, and live at the root of your site. The favicon (the small icon in browser tabs) needs three versions: a 16 by 16 pixel version, a 32 by 32 version, and an ICO file for older browsers. Together, these three files control how your brand appears in tabs, bookmarks, and home screens.

For service businesses, this preview image is often the first impression a potential client sees. When a satisfied patient texts your website link to a friend, that friend sees the preview image before they ever visit your site. A blurry screenshot or an outdated logo in that preview undermines the referral before the person clicks. The same is true for the home screen icon. A patient who saves your practice to their phone and sees a polished branded icon is reminded that yours is a professional operation.

After updating, you can verify the new image is being served. Facebook has a Sharing Debugger that lets you paste your URL and force a re-scrape. LinkedIn has a Post Inspector that does the same. For iMessage, clearing the link preview cache requires the version parameter trick because Apple does not offer a manual refresh tool.

We build this versioning pattern into every client site from day one. The preview image, the favicon set, and the Apple touch icon all ship in the first deployment. When we update a homepage design or swap a hero photo, the preview image updates in the same deployment. The version bumps automatically. Your clients and their referrals always see the current version of your brand, not a cached artifact from last quarter.