Here’s the image I was testing in that last post. I’m embedding it this time and going with no featured image.
I’m trying to figure out how Facebook pulls images when I share and publicize links. It seems random at times, but given the fetish for algorithms Facebook seems to have, I think randomness is quite impossible. So I’m testing and comparing notes with Therefore I Geek, Part Time Monster, Infinite Free Time, Victim to Charm, and others about it.
Here is how I think it works.
1. It seems to always pull a featured image as a little square with the link to the side.
2. If no featured image, it pulls from the post starting with the largest. If no images in the post are the right proportions to run across the column with the link underneath, It pulls an image and puts it in the little square.
3. If the post is all text with no media at all, it uses the blavatar, in a little square.
4. Oddly. If the post has other media, such as videos and pins, but no image, it pulls whatever site-wide art it can find and displays that.
If I use only pins for art at here, it pulls one of my header images, because that is the only site-wide art I have that isn’t in a slideshow. It routinely pulls blogging badges from Part Time Monster with her links when she does pin-only posts and puts them in a little square, but I can’t find any rhyme nor reason to how it decides which badges to pull.
(And yes, people who are better at searches that me. I have heard of Google. I’m happy for you to drop me an explainer with a non-snarky comment if you can find one in under 5 minutes because I really want to know. I’m tinkering here and playing blogger games. Combing through websites from a search page is not fun. This is.)