Link sharing on Facebook - atypical behavior

Nicci

So I want to start off by saying :thumb on the improved Facebook integration.

But I noticed something odd today.

If I post a link on my Facebook wall, it allows me to choose the thumbnail for the link and it shares fine on my wall.

However, if someone else on Facebook were to click on the "share" option on my Facebook wall, the new link that posts for them drops the thumbnail photos. This is not typical behavior.

Let me try to get some photos to explain:

Here is the link as shared on my wall:


Here is what it looks like when someone tries to share the same link on my wall (using the "share" button on my facebook wall):


Here is the final result when they post the shared link on their wall:


Now here is what shared links typically look like:


Side by side of typical link vs. SmugMug link using same "share" button on a user's Facebook wall:

Nicci

Just to clear any confusion in advance, I use a link modifier so the link seems different in the photos. (It appears to not be a SmugMug link)

However, it links to the SmugMug link.

I tried the same thing with a direct SmugMug link, and the behavior is exactly the same (no thumbnail on the share). I just didn't want to do the images over again.

rainforest1155

Doesn't seem SmugMug specific. Someone shared a Wikipedia link with a thumbnail:


and when I shared it to my wall, the thumbnail was removed as well:


This smells like some kind of Facebook limitation or bug.

Sebastian

docwalker

I have been seeing this a lot on my non-smugmug facebook posts as Seb indicated. I do think that it is a FB limitation. We will take a look to see if there is anything we can do on our end.

scotticus

Yeah, it seems to be a dead end trying to get any insight from facebook on how the share link works, but we're passing them all the right data so it seems to be either by design, or some limitation/bug on their part. Hopefully at some point they will make it more consistent.

docwalker wrote: »

I have been seeing this a lot on my non-smugmug facebook posts as Seb indicated. I do think that it is a FB limitation. We will take a look to see if there is anything we can do on our end.