Fetching the Correct Featured Image for Reddit Thumbnail on WordPress

Table of Contents

Possible Fix #1

In this post I will show you how to force Reddit to choose the correct Image to show when you submit a link to Reddit from you WordPress website.

So in the header of your website, specifically between the <header> </header> tags, you need to insert this piece of code:

<meta property="og:image" content="<?php $post_thumbnail = wp_get_attachment_image_src(get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID),'large'); echo $post_thumbnail[0]; ?>" />

If this doesn’t work, try the one below:

<meta property="og:image:url" content="<?php $post_thumbnail = wp_get_attachment_image_src(get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID),'large'); echo $post_thumbnail[0]; ?>" />

Does it make a difference? I though Reddit did not seem to read or notice the og:image property. Instead, as you can see in the above code, the og:image:url property needs to be used in order to force Reddit to accept you thumbnail/featured image as the one to show on Reddit when you submit a link.

Possible Fix #2

Another reason why Reddit is not choosing your featured image is probably because your Feature Image aspect ratio is wrong. Reddit uses a 70 X 70 pixel image. If you have a wide featured image or a featured image which does not fit this aspect ratio, then the result is that Reddit takes a different image from your blog- not your featured image. [source]

You could try hitting the “retry thumnail” option next to your submission.

You could try a different sized featured image- This works when #3 doesn’t