Here's a curious puzzle.
When I share http://www.mikebonin.com/ on Facebook, Facebook grabs the link to the splash page.
This is bad on it's own, plus, it is causing other problems.
I was advised to plug the site into the Facebook Object Debugger tool to clear the cache. It cleared the cache but it never solved the larger issue. It did reveal, however, that Facebook was ignoring the canonical link I specified in the OG meta tag in the header:
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.mikebonin.com"/>
I have found that if turn off the splash page on the site, then Facebook does not have this problem with the canonical link. But if I turn the Splash page back on, then Facebook once again has the problem.
So, I am faced with a choice - I can have a splash page for my first time visitors, OR I can give all my users ability to share the site over Facebook, but they cannot have both at the same time.
I just want Facebook to grab the canonical link from the meta tag, whether or not the splash screen is turned on. I shouldn't have to choose between the two - I want both. :-)
Has anyone ever heard of this before?
Tim, did you actually try posting it to Facebook and clicking on the link to test this? I just tried it and it is working fine.
- http://www.mikebonin.com/ is the link that is shared on Facebook when you actually hit the submit button.
- The feature is functioning properly. That link that shows the /welcome is not an actual link, but the meta description for the page that facebook tries to load. It is doing that because the social media settings for that page have been left blank. Go to the page and then Settings > Social media to fill in the proper excerpt for the splash page to fix that.
- Depending on whether or not the person has visited the site, NationBuilder will serve/not serve up the splash page
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Tim Wayne
Certified Architect
Certified Expert
Tim Wayne
Certified Architect
Certified Expert
Yesterday, when I was on the phone with the client, when I put http://www.mikebonin.com into the Facebook window, it kept linking to https://mikebonin.nationbuilder.com/forms/user_sessions/new Clicking on the link in Facebook brought me to https://mikebonin.nationbuilder.com/forms/user_sessions/new.
In the intervening time, I turned off and on the splash page several times, clearing the Facebook cache in between every step. Something I did yesterday must have made it start working.
Anyways, thank you for your time and attention on this issue. And CJ as well. It is definitely resolved.
-Tim