Facebook Ads Not Redirecting Properly – Facebook App ID Issue

Hello @albarosa,

Thank you for contacting Rank Math support.

Our plugin can’t control why the post URLs are not working when visiting them using Facebook posts. Our plugin’s meta tags are only used to generate the link preview. The fb:app_id tag also doesn’t have anything to do with the issue. You can share an affected URL so we can check if we can provide you further insights that might help you fix the issue.

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello @rankmathsupport,

Thank you for your response.

Regarding:
?The fb tag also doesn’t have anything to do with the issue.“

Are you certain about that? It seems to me that my website, which seems to appear as an app for mobile users within Facebook’s in-app browser, might not be properly recognized. Otherwise, I can’t explain this behavior.

On November 6, 2024, I included a link in one of my promoted Facebook posts, which, according to the insights, generated 20 link-clicks. However, none of these clicks appeared in my access log files. The only related entries I found were requests from “facebookexternalhit” with Facebook IP addresses. Based on my research, “facebookexternalhit” is used for crawling content and is unrelated to user clicks. This raises the question: where are the actual link-clicks? I should at least see some of them in my access logs.

I conducted test clicks with friends who deliberately went to my Facebook page when the promotion was over and clicked on the post link. These clicks were correctly logged in my access files, confirming that the issue lies with posts being shared and interacted with via Facebook’s in-app browser.

Here’s the link to the mentioned post: https://tinyurl.com/3nr5cwf6

On November 11, 2024, I published another post, which I also promoted and included a link in the description. According to the insights, this post generated 11 Link-clicks. The behavior was identical to the first post, with one exception: a friend was scrolling through his Facebook feed next to me and saw my post.

He said:
“Hey, there’s your post in my feed!”
I replied:
“Oh, let me check, I’m having issues with the links!”

I clicked on the link from his feed, and it brought up the infamous black page with two buttons. One of the buttons, which was supposed to lead to my website, didn’t even work.

Here’s the link to the described post: https://tinyurl.com/56zfw6b7

Last night, I published another post with a link and promoted it. The behavior is the same: none of the alleged clicks appear in my access logs, and I only see Facebook IP addresses with “facebookexternalhit.”

Additionally, my reach has dropped significantly, despite good engagement on my posts. The paid promotion of my post should reach 300-800 paid accounts daily, but after the first 24 hours, I’ve only reached 150 people total (50 organic + 100 paid).

I’m essentially paying to reach my own followers, yet the numbers remain low, and my links are malfunctioning.

Here’s the link to the post: https://tinyurl.com/y6ra7m4x

For the reasons mentioned above, it seems plausible to me that a faulty FB APP-ID recognition could be causing these interaction issues. This is especially concerning because the warning is displayed in the Facebook Debugger Tool. I have correctly entered the FB APP-ID into your plugin, and the code is also shown in the Debugger Tool. Nevertheless, the warning persists.

I’d greatly appreciate any insights or information you might have.

P.S.
My fan page has no blocks or warnings; the status is completely clean.

Hello @albarosa,

The fb:app_id tag used to be part of Facebook’s ‘Domain insights‘ product. When users ‘liked’ your content (using an embedded like button on your webpage), the app_id value let Facebook know which Facebook Page should be able to see and access the relevant statistics.

The Domain Insights product no longer exists, though. The analytics capabilities that the fb:app_id tag provided are now part of Facebook’s Analytics platform, and require you to install a Facebook Pixel instead of a fb:app_id meta tag.

If you still want to get rid of the warning, follow this guide: https://rankmath.com/kb/fb-app-id-warnings/

We tried visiting all the URLs you shared from the Desktop version and Facebook App. Both were redirected to the posts without any issues. So there is nothing wrong with the URLs. If the issue only occurs with the paid ads, then you should check with Facebook Ads support to figure out what is causing the issue. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do to help you fix the issue.

Please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.