getwowlink — Link Preview Images

Description

When someone shares a link to your site, X, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Slack and Telegram show a preview card. Without a good image, that card is a grey box. getwowlink gives every post and page its own preview image, so every share looks designed.

You design one template in getwowlink, by hand or with AI, from your site’s colors and content. The plugin then adds the right image to each page, made from that page’s title. Edit the template once and every page follows.

What you get

• A preview image for every post, page and other post type you choose, made from the page’s own title.
• Works with Yoast SEO and Rank Math: the image goes through their filters, so a page prints exactly one og:image and one twitter:image.
• Works with no SEO plugin too: the plugin adds the og:image and twitter:image tags itself.
• Choose whether getwowlink always sets the image, or only when a page has none and your featured images stay.
• A panel in the block editor shows the post’s preview and lets you switch getwowlink off for that post.
• A settings page that shows your plan, the template, the homepage preview, and any other plugin or theme that also prints an og:image.
• Optional, off by default: “Track visits from shares” counts the visits that arrive from shared links, by platform, with no cookies and no visitor IDs.

How it works

1. Install and activate the plugin, then open Settings → getwowlink and choose “Connect to getwowlink”.
2. In the tab that opens, sign in, pick a design and choose a plan. The free getwowlink Free plan covers one site.
3. Back in WordPress, the settings page updates by itself. From then on, new and edited pages get their images.

The plugin is free. It works with a getwowlink account; the getwowlink Free plan covers one site, and paid plans lift the monthly page limit.

External services

This plugin connects to the getwowlink service, operated by getwowlink, to design, render and serve the preview images. It cannot work without it.

• api.getwowlink.com is the getwowlink api. The plugin sends requests to it from your server.
• getwowimg.com serves the rendered preview images. Social networks and chat apps load the images from here, and the editor panel and the settings page in your WordPress admin load preview images from here too. When “Track visits from shares” is on, it also serves the visit script (below).
• www.getwowlink.com is the website where you sign in, design your template and manage your plan. The “Connect”, “Edit template” and help links open it in your browser.

What is sent, and when:

• When you start connecting: your site address and the WordPress admin URL, so getwowlink can send you back to this page.
• A status report (“heartbeat”): your site address, the WordPress admin URL, the versions of the plugin, WordPress and PHP, the name and version of the SEO plugin (Yoast SEO or Rank Math) if one is active, the names of any other plugin or theme found printing an og:image and when your homepage was last checked for that, and the plugin’s settings (whether getwowlink replaces your own images, and which post types get images). It is sent when you finish connecting or save a site key, when you save the settings, when you press “Check again”, and about once a day through WordPress cron.
• When you update a published post or page that uses getwowlink: the path of that page (for example /blog/launch-week), so getwowlink can refresh its image. At most once a minute per page.
• When you choose “Disconnect and remove images”: a request telling getwowlink the site is disconnected.
• While a connection is pending: the pairing id and secret, to ask whether you finished in getwowlink (on admin page loads, and every few seconds while the settings page is open), and again if you cancel it.
• When you save a site key or open the settings page: a request for your site’s settings from getwowlink (the site key only).
• In the background, when the cached settings have expired (at most every 12 hours, or 5 minutes after a failed try): the same request for your settings, started by WordPress cron after a page view. It carries the site key only.
• The site key that proves a request comes from your site is sent as a header with each request after connecting.
• “Track visits from shares” on or off: whether it is on, with the next status report after you change it in the settings, and once after you connect or after updating from 1.0 (off unless you turned it on). The same setting can be changed in getwowlink’s Add to site dialog; the plugin picks that up with its settings (within 12 hours).

Visitor data: none, unless you turn on “Track visits from shares” (off by default). When it is on, every page of your site (posts, pages, the home page and archives) loads a small script (v.js) from getwowimg.com, and each visitor’s browser sends one request to getwowimg.com with the page path (for example /blog/launch-week), the domain of the site the visitor came from (for example linkedin.com, not the full address), the utm_source of the link if it has one, and whether the link came from Facebook (an fbclid in the address). Browsers without JavaScript load a 1×1 image with the page path only. No cookies are set, nothing is stored in the browser and no visitor ID is assigned: getwowlink counts visits per page and platform. Like any image request, the request reaches getwowimg.com with the visitor’s IP address and browser details; getwowlink doesn’t store them with the visit. Turn it off in Settings → getwowlink and the script is no longer printed.

Pages print the image address (and, when on, the visit script) from a cached copy of your settings, so a page view never waits for getwowlink.

The service is provided by getwowlink: Terms of service and Privacy policy.