News publishers and bloggers have unique Open Graph requirements compared to other websites. Articles have authors, publication dates, sections, and tags — all of which can be communicated through OG tags to improve how content appears in social feeds and news aggregators. This guide covers the article-specific OG tags that most publishers overlook.
Use og:type="article" for All Articles
Set og:type to "article" for all news articles and blog posts. This unlocks article-specific OG properties: og:article:published_time (ISO 8601 format), og:article:modified_time, og:article:author (URL of the author's profile page), og:article:section (the article's category), and og:article:tag (can be used multiple times for each tag).
Publication Time and Freshness Signals
Including og:article:published_time and og:article:modified_time helps social platforms understand the freshness of your content. Facebook uses this information to display "X hours ago" timestamps in news feed previews, which can significantly increase CTR for breaking news and timely content.
💡 Always update og:article:modified_time when you make significant updates to an article. This signals to social platforms that the content is fresh and may trigger re-crawling.
Author Attribution
Use og:article:author to link to the author's profile page (either on your site or their social media profile). This enables author attribution in some social platform previews and helps build author authority. For multi-author publications, this tag is especially important for establishing individual writer brands.
Headline Optimization for News
News headlines follow different conventions than marketing copy. The most clicked news headlines are specific, factual, and create information gaps. Avoid clickbait — platforms like Facebook actively penalize content with misleading headlines. The best news og:titles are the same as the article headline, optimized for 60 characters.
Key Takeaway
News publishers who implement article-specific OG tags consistently see higher social traffic than those using generic website tags. The additional metadata helps social platforms understand and categorize your content, leading to better distribution and higher CTR. Use PreviewPro to verify your article OG tags before every publish.
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Elena Rodriguez
Elena is a B2B content strategist and LinkedIn marketing expert who has generated over $2M in pipeline through organic LinkedIn content.
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