What does LinkedIn Post Inspector do?
Post Inspector is LinkedIn's own checker at linkedin.com/post-inspector. You paste a URL and it shows how LinkedIn reads that page for a link preview, then refreshes the copy LinkedIn has stored. LinkedIn's help page on refreshing a URL (shown as last updated 3 years ago when checked on 4 November 2026) gives the reason you need it: if a URL has been shared before, its image may already sit in LinkedIn's cache, and that old image is what shows up in your new post.
Open Post Inspector
Go to linkedin.com/post-inspector in a web browser. The help page links straight to it and has no separate steps for the iOS or Android app.
Enter the URL
Paste the exact address you plan to share. Kinsta's guide (updated 16 May 2025) says to type the URL and click Inspect.
Check the preview
Confirm the preview window shows the correct content: the image, title and description you expect.
Share it in a new post
Paste the same URL into a new post on desktop or in the app.
Read the note at the bottom of LinkedIn's help page before you start: "The preview for any existing posts with this URL will remain the same." Post Inspector fixes the next post. It never changes one that is already live.
Why is my LinkedIn link preview missing or wrong?
Usually because LinkedIn couldn't read the page's Open Graph tags, couldn't fetch the image, or is still showing a cached copy. Match what you see to a row. The causes come from LinkedIn's help pages, checked 4 November 2026, chiefly its troubleshooting page for sharing URLs and its Make your website shareable page; the fixes are ours.
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No title, image or description, or other content from the site shown instead | The page has no Open Graph or oEmbed tags. LinkedIn says its share box relies on them, and without them content may not be pulled or other content from the site may be shown | Add the og: tags in the template below |
| The image meets the size rules but never appears | LinkedIn says your website may be blocking it from pulling the image, or the image may sit in a protected directory | Make the image URL public, then check robots.txt and any bot or firewall rules |
| A small thumbnail instead of a wide card | The image is less than 401 pixels wide, which LinkedIn displays as a thumbnail | Use an image of at least 1200 x 627 pixels |
| The old image or title after you changed the page | LinkedIn's cached copy | Clear your own site's cache, run Post Inspector, then share in a new post |
| An error when you paste the URL | The URL contains spaces, which LinkedIn says can't be shared | Encode the spaces or remove them from the URL |
| A post that is already live shows the wrong preview | Existing posts keep the preview they were created with | Delete the post and share again |
What site owners report: check the crawler first. Two reports point at the same first suspect. Evgenii Pendragon, who blogs about developing software, wrote in July 2025 that after blocking all crawlers in robots.txt, LinkedIn posts of new articles showed no preview for two weeks. Post Inspector's error said the URL was blocked by rules set in robots.txt. The fix was to let LinkedIn's crawler in while keeping the rest out:
In an August 2026 r/linkedin thread, a WordPress blogger got no preview after trying two Open Graph plugins and three browsers. One reply asked whether the blog was blocking LinkedIn's bot. The poster then found WordPress's discourage search engines setting and reported a preview through the blog's own share button, though still none when pasting the URL. These are two self-reports, but they point at the first thing to rule out: LinkedIn has to be allowed to fetch both the page and the image.
Which Open Graph tags and image size does LinkedIn need?
LinkedIn's shareable website page lists four og: tags that must exist: og:title, og:image, og:description and og:url. The Open Graph protocol itself names four required properties for every page: og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url. Add og:type too; it is one line, and the protocol requires it.
The image rules on the same LinkedIn page:
| Rule | LinkedIn's figure |
|---|---|
| Maximum file size | 5 MB |
| Minimum dimensions | 1200 (w) x 627 (h) pixels |
| Recommended ratio | 1.91:1 |
| Shown as a thumbnail | Images less than 401 pixels wide |
Worked example. Say your blog's featured image is a 1080 x 1080 square. Cropping it to 1.91:1 at full width gives 1080 / 1.91 = 565 pixels tall, so 1080 x 565, which is under LinkedIn's minimum on both sides (1080 is less than 1200, and 565 is less than 627). Export a separate 1200 x 627 version for og:image instead: 1200 / 627 = 1.914, which is LinkedIn's 1.91:1. And if og:image points at a 400-pixel-wide logo, expect a thumbnail, because 400 is under the 401-pixel line.
Some sites need more than the tags. One Hacker News commenter in July 2025 reported that LinkedIn wanted a lowercase doctype and a well-formed HTML document with og:type included, and that it fetched the address in og:url. That is one commenter's experience, but it is another reason to keep og:url pointing at a live page.
How long does LinkedIn cache a link preview?
LinkedIn's help pages give two different waits, and a third page offers Post Inspector as the way to refresh a URL:
| LinkedIn help page | What it says |
|---|---|
| Troubleshooting issues sharing URLs | Allow 48 hours from the last time you shared the URL before trying again. Developers who updated tags should wait 48 hours for the changes to take effect. |
| Edit a shared post | The share box remembers the content of the last link you shared for three days. |
| Use Post Inspector to refresh URL | Refresh the URL; the change applies to new posts that include it. |
A worked timeline. You share a new article at 09:00 on Monday, spot the wrong image and fix og:image at 10:00. First clear your site or CDN cache, or Post Inspector may read the old page. Run Post Inspector at 10:05. If it shows the right preview, delete the Monday post and share again. If the share box still shows the old image when you paste the URL, don't post yet. The troubleshooting page's 48 hours from the last share run to 09:00 on Wednesday, and the edit page's three days to 09:00 on Thursday. Because the troubleshooting page counts from the last time you shared the URL, sharing it again in between moves that date.
Kinsta's guide adds that the old trick of adding a fake query string such as ?a to the URL only refreshes the preview for that one link. Posts that use the original URL keep the old preview.
Can you fix the preview on a post that's already live?
No. LinkedIn's edit help page says only the text in a post can be edited, and new URLs added in an edit won't display a new preview image. To change shared media, LinkedIn says to delete the post and create a new one. Our guide to editing a LinkedIn post after posting covers what an edit can still change.
So the choice is between living with the wrong card or reposting. Repost when the image is wrong or the title belongs to another page, because that card is what people judge the click on. If only the description is a little off, leave it. A new post starts again with no reactions or comments.
Two link details from LinkedIn's help pages are worth knowing when you repost. Links longer than 26 characters are shortened automatically once you click Post. And if you share an article with no text after the link, LinkedIn hides the URL from the post. The share help page says the preview frame is 1.91:1 at 1200 x 627 pixels, and that if no preview image loads you can still share the update as a link.
A fixed card doesn't settle whether the link belongs in the post at all. Our breakdown of putting the link in the post or the first comment compares the 2026 reach data. To write the post so it still works for people who never click, see our guide to LinkedIn posts that answer in the feed.
A five-minute checklist before you share a link
Run this before any post with a link, and before you boost one. It takes about five minutes once you know where your site keeps its tags.
Post Inspector checks the link card. To check the words above it, paste the draft into our free LinkedIn post preview tool, which shows the post on desktop and on a phone with the line people see before "see more".
Frequently asked questions
Is LinkedIn Post Inspector free to use?
LinkedIn's help article on refreshing a URL links to Post Inspector without mentioning any price or plan, and Kinsta's guide calls it a free tool. You paste a URL into linkedin.com/post-inspector and it shows the preview LinkedIn will use for that link, so it is worth running before every post that carries one.
Does Post Inspector update the preview on posts I already published?
No. LinkedIn's help article says changes made through Post Inspector only affect the preview image and information for new posts that include the URL, and the preview on existing posts stays the same. Editing the post doesn't help either, so the only way to change a live post's card is to delete it and share the link again.
Why does LinkedIn show the wrong image for my link?
LinkedIn uses the image named in your page's og:image tag. If the page has no Open Graph tags, LinkedIn says content may not be pulled or other content from the site may be shown. If you recently changed the image, LinkedIn may still hold the old copy in its cache. Fix the tag, clear your own site cache, then refresh the URL in Post Inspector before posting again.
What image size does LinkedIn use for link previews?
LinkedIn's page on making a website shareable asks for an image of at least 1200 pixels wide by 627 pixels high, a recommended ratio of 1.91:1 and a maximum file size of 5 MB. It also says images under 401 pixels wide are shown as a thumbnail, so a small logo will not fill the full preview card.
Does LinkedIn Post Inspector work for company page posts?
As far as LinkedIn's help page shows, yes. It describes the refresh by URL, not by account: the change applies to new posts that include that URL, with no separate rule for company Pages. The same limit applies to both: posts already published keep the preview they had when they went out.
Sources
- LinkedIn Post Inspector (checked 4 Nov 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Use Post Inspector to refresh URL (checked 4 Nov 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Troubleshooting issues sharing URLs (checked 4 Nov 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Make your website shareable on LinkedIn (checked 4 Nov 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Edit a shared post (checked 4 Nov 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Share articles or links (checked 4 Nov 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Short URLs in shared posts (checked 4 Nov 2026)
- The Open Graph protocol (checked 4 Nov 2026)
- Evgenii Pendragon: I was wrong about robots.txt (10 Jul 2025)
- r/linkedin: WordPress blog won't show a link preview on LinkedIn (31 Aug 2026; checked 4 Nov 2026)
- Hacker News comment on I was wrong about robots.txt (17 Jul 2025)
- Kinsta (Matteo Duo): How to Fix Your Link Previews on LinkedIn (updated 16 May 2025)