This document discusses solutions to the problem of images and thumbnails not displaying properly when sharing pages on LinkedIn. It describes various trials of changing image paths, file formats, page layouts and metadata to troubleshoot the issue. The key findings were that LinkedIn requires clean code with well-defined metadata like open graph tags and a single paragraph with the main image. Page load speed and file extensions also impacted whether content could be properly shared on LinkedIn. The document advocates a methodical trial and error process to optimize sharing.

1. Solving Linkedin share problems
Linkedin share image/thumbnail not
showing? This presentation contains trial &
error tests from www.imagebankpro.com …
and easy to apply solutions!
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 1

2. The situation
• I’m using sharethis and addthis plugin to share
pages to Linkedin
• Tried open graph (og:image) but no success
• Trial & error (lots) gave me some solutions
• In the next slides, i will explain what i did and
what the result was
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 2

3. The homepage ‐ visual
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 3

4. The sharing popup – no image!
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 4

5. The homepage ‐ code
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 5

6. Trial & error
• Save source as html and upload as test.html
• Sharethis no difference, linkedin company
share no difference
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 6

7. Trial & error
• I change something and save as test1.html,
then test2.html and so on
• It’s very important to do that, because
otherwise you will not see the reality due to
caching problems
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 7

8. Trial & error
• Change relative to absolute path of header image –
didn’t work
• Resaved image into jpg ‐ didn’t work
• Moved the header image into an article tag – didn’t
work
• Stripped the whole page – didn’t work
• Added title tag to image – didn’t work
• Made title and alt tag the same – didn’t work
• Moved the page to a different domain – didn’t work
• But then …
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 8

9. Trial & error ‐ visual – stripped page
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 9

10. Trial & error – code not good
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 10

11. Trial & error
• Changed the code again – bingo!
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 11

12. Trial & error ‐ success code
• The difference: only one paragraph and image
within that paragraph
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 12

13. Now going back to the original
(the not stripped page)
• Changing the code and using sharethis …
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 13

14. What did i do?
• I added the same image to the intro paragraph and
used style=“display:none;”. Of course, that’s only
because i wanted to use the header image
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 14

15. One remark
• For one reason or the other, it wasn’t
immediately working on my homepage
(www.imagebankpro.com). I guess Linkedin
has somewhere a cache.
• After a fex hours, it also worked on home
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 15

16. What’s next
• I tried my theory on another website, and … it didn’t work. Damn.
So again, trial & error …
• What was the situation: a news page
http://www.lemento.com/nl/nieuws/belfius_insurance_adverteert
_in_metro.asp
• This page: no result, although i applied my theory …
• Net step: I saved the source as html
• http://www.lemento.com/nl/nieuws/belfius_insurance_adverteert
_in_metro.html and yes ‐ it worked
• Than, I created a folder and saved the newsfile as index.asp. The
link became
http://www.lemento.com/nl/nieuws/belfius_insurance_adverteert
_in_metro/ exactly the same page, only the extension “.asp” was
not there anymore ‐ BINGO
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 16

17. So
• I can’t explain this – it looks like linkedin
doesn’t like asp‐pages and has no problem
with html.
• But the asp problem is not always there.
• And that’s not all … i continued with other
content pages and again other problems
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 17

18. Trial & error
• Saved page as html – wrong description (some
footer content)
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 18

19. Trial & error
• Main reason: meta description too short!
• So i changed it – made it much longer
• And the result ‐ Yes
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 19

20. Trial & error
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 20

21. Trial & error
• Interesting is also to see that “Building
corporate brands” is not the <title> of the
page, but the H1 in the content. That can be
interesting for other people too
• My conclusion: the moment that Linkedin
understands the page, it pulls the right
picture, description and title.
• If the metadata are not ok, Linkedin is not
interested in sharing the page
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 21

22. Trial & error
• Other problem is the order of the attributes. If
you use an invisible image, you have to put
style=“display:none;” at the end. When it’s
immediately after <img , it’s not working. Be
careful, because Tiny mce has a different
default behaviour!
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 22

23. Trial & error
• Now i have 2 pages, identical source code, one
page ok, the other not. But ..
• Page is saved source code ‐ linkedin ok
http://www.lemento.com/nl/Portfolio/media
marktsaturn.asp
• Page is executed code on server – linkedin not
ok
http://www.lemento.com/nl/Portfolio/media_
markt_saturn.asp
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 23

24. Load speed?
• Tools.pingdom.com
• Big difference!!
Server processing makes This page (saved source)
this page slower and not is fast enough for linkedin
good enough for linkedin
Solving Linkedin share problems ‐
3/15/2013 www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom 24
Vanderbauwhede

25. Load speed?
• Very fast imagebankpro.com
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 25

26. Conclusion
• Lots of reasons – lots of details in solutions
– Clean code
– Well defined metadata
– Tricks to force the image (display none)
– Fast pages
• I don’t say i solved this totally, but for me it’s a
big step forward.
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 26

27. Good luck with your project
• Tom Vanderbauwhede is managing director of Lemento and
ImagebankPro.com. This presentation is the first in a long
series of Lemento Labs presentations
• FYI: i like solving problems, never shared the solutions before.
From now on, i will share everything. Do me a favour and
like/follow us on no matter what social network!
• https://plus.google.com/108608210692028451972
• http://www.linkedin.com/company/imagebankpro
• https://twitter.com/imagebankpro
• http://www.facebook.com/imagebankpro
3/15/2013 Solving Linkedin share problems ‐ www.imagebankpro.com ‐ Tom Vanderbauwhede 27