Social Previews
How WarpLink generates rich link previews for social media.
When a WarpLink URL is shared on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Slack, iMessage, etc.), it displays a rich preview card with a title, description, and image. This is automatic — no extra configuration needed.
How It Works
WarpLink detects social media bots by matching the User-Agent against a list of known crawler patterns:
- Bot detected — The Worker returns a full HTML page with Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags
- Real user — The Worker returns a 302 redirect to the destination
This split approach ensures:
- Social platforms get the metadata they need for rich previews
- Real users get instant redirects without seeing an interstitial page
Bot Detection
The Worker checks the User-Agent against a list of known bot patterns stored in KV (_config:bot-agents). Common patterns include:
Twitterbot— Twitter/X card crawlerfacebookexternalhit— Facebook Open Graph crawlerLinkedInBot— LinkedIn preview crawlerSlackbot— Slack unfurl crawlerWhatsApp— WhatsApp preview crawlerGooglebot— Google search crawler
When a bot is detected, the Worker serves HTML instead of a redirect.
Meta Tags
The HTML response includes both Open Graph and Twitter Card tags:
<meta property="og:title" content="Check out this product" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Amazing deal on..." />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://aplnk.to/abc123" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Check out this product" />
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Amazing deal on..." />
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg" />Configuring Previews
Set social preview metadata when creating or updating a link:
curl -X POST https://api.warplink.app/v1/links \
-H "Authorization: Bearer wl_live_YOUR_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"destination_url": "https://example.com/product",
"og_title": "Check out this product",
"og_description": "Amazing deal you won'\''t want to miss",
"og_image_url": "https://example.com/product-image.jpg"
}'If no OG metadata is set on the link, WarpLink uses the destination URL's existing OG tags as fallback.
Best Practices
- Image size: Use images at least 1200x630px for optimal display across platforms
- Title length: Keep titles under 60 characters to avoid truncation
- Description length: Keep descriptions under 155 characters
- Image format: JPEG or PNG — avoid SVG (not supported by most crawlers)
- HTTPS images: All image URLs must use HTTPS