How can I add a feature picture to the webpage link?

  • I want to do the same thing with all “posts”..

    1. Is there a way to show the embedded YouTube video image as the post image when sharing it on different websites?

    0r

    2. Can I add an image as a feature image to the page WITHOUT having to actually uploaded on the page?

    or

    3. If I have to add a picture, can I just add it with my Visual composer under the video and would it pick up automatically as the page image?

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by tu586.
    • This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Jan Dembowski. Reason: Moved to Fixing WordPress, this is not an Developing with WordPress topic
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    Social sites generally prefer to get the featured image from structured data embedded on the page. OpenGraph tags is one popular form of structured data. These are typically added to post pages as part of some social sharing plugin, though some themes might include OpenGraph tags on their own. Some sites will grab the first image found on sharing links if there is no structured data, but you shouldn’t want them to do that. It’s better to tell them what to use through structured data.

    Whether a YouTube video would be honored as a featured image depends on the site. If nothing else, supplying a video URL as the link for a structured data image violates the purpose of the image field. It’s intended for actual images. It might work on some sites, but it’s not “correct”. There is a different data field for videos, but sites typically would not be looking for such data as a featured image.

    If you see other featured images as videos on a particular social site, find a support forum for that site and find out how it is done.

    Thread Starter tu586

    (@tu586)

    Ok, I hear you..

    So, it is better to add a separate image besides the YouTube video even if I want that image. (It is from my own video creation btw)

    Question:

    How do I get structured data image on a post? Should I just upload an image below the YouTube video?

    Is there a way to add a structured data image without the image actually showing on the post once you click on it?

    The only place I seen a feature image coming from a video was on a google search with my page as a result, and that was under video search as well… so… maybe having the video image as feature image might not be used at all.

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    Here’s an example OpenGraph image reference which goes in the page’s <head> section:
    <meta property="og:image" content="https://example.info/foobar.jpg" />
    It’s usually part of a larger set of tags. Which tags are used varies by site. The image itself does not need to appear on the page at all to be valid structured data. A site could try to ensure the image does occur on the page since referring to a non-existent image could be something a scammer might do. How much validation it does is anyone’s guess. An <img> tag on the page that is hidden by CSS may or may not be acceptable. Or visible but sized to 1×1 pixel.

    I’ve no idea what Google does for video search results. I would guess that it first looks for a video structured data tag and uses that resource’s thumbnail when found. If no such tag is found, it probably uses the first video found on the page. In this case I don’t think an image OpenGraph tag is even needed. But to address other uses of structured data, you may choose to include a static image anyway. If that image is redundant, as it would be if it is a thumbnail for the video, I’d include it in a 1x1px <img> tag right after the video embed.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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