Webpage Bot: refresh link previews

You changed the picture and headline on your site, yet in Telegram the link still shows the old card. It happens to everyone: the messenger remembers a page's preview and is in no hurry to refresh it. Webpage Bot fixes exactly this problem by making Telegram read the page again.

Where the stuck preview comes from

When you send a link, Telegram loads the page and builds a card from its meta tags: the title, the description and the image. It caches the result, meaning it stores it.

If the page is edited afterward, the card stays the same until the cache refreshes. No lifetime is documented, so the wait can be long.

What Webpage Bot does

The bot requests the page again and updates the stored preview. It has two commands, and both are simple.

• /updatepreview. Refresh a link's preview. You can type the command and add the page address.
• /cancel. Cancel the current operation if you changed your mind or sent the wrong link.

Beyond the commands, you can simply send the bot an address. Several links can go in a single message.

Refreshing a preview step by step 🔄

1. Open the bot and press Start. A greeting with a hint appears.
2. Send the link. Copy the full page address, including its beginning.
3. Press the update button. If the preview did not change the first time, refresh again, including the content option.
4. Send the link again. In a chat or channel it now appears with the new card.

What the bot will not fix

A cache refresh affects new shares. Messages you already sent keep the old preview. If it matters that subscribers see the new card, publish the link again.

The bot does not repair the page either. If the page lacks the right meta tags, the new preview will be just as empty, only fresher.

If the preview still will not change

Check three things. First, that the changes are really saved on the site and not sitting in a server cache. Second, that the title, description and image tags are set correctly. Third, that the image opens at its direct address and is not too heavy.

A good preview image is horizontal, large and free of small text near the edges, since Telegram crops it to the card format.

Another common cause: the page serves different meta tags to different visitors or requires a login. Telegram's crawler sees only what any person can open without signing up, so closed pages get an empty card.

If you use a site builder, look in the page settings for the fields for the title and image used when sharing on social networks. Filling them in gives a decent preview without touching code.

Who needs it

Website and online store owners, channel authors who link to their own articles, and marketers launching ads. Any edit to a title or banner before a mailout should pass a preview check.

A simple habit: before publishing an important link, run it through the bot. That avoids the situation where readers see last year's picture.