What are Twitter Card tags?
Twitter Card tags are meta tags that control how links appear when shared on Twitter (now X), creating rich media attachments with images, titles, and descriptions instead of plain links.
While Twitter also respects Open Graph tags, Twitter Card tags provide Twitter-specific customization and additional card types.
Twitter Card types:
summary- Default card with small image, title, descriptionsummary_large_image- Like summary but with prominent large imageapp- Mobile app installation cardplayer- Video/audio player card for media content
Core Twitter Card tags:
twitter:card- Card type, e.g., "summary_large_image"twitter:title- Title of content, max 70 characterstwitter:description- Description, max 200 characterstwitter:image- Image URL, minimum 300x157px, max 4096x4096px, under 5MBtwitter:site- Twitter username of the website, e.g., "@yoursite"
Additional tags:
twitter:creator- Twitter username of content creatortwitter:image:alt- Accessibility description of image, max 420 characterstwitter:player- HTTPS URL of video player iframe for player cardstwitter:app:id:iphone/twitter:app:id:ipad- App Store IDs for app cards
Example:
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
Fallback behavior:
Twitter Cards fall back to Open Graph tags if Twitter-specific tags are missing, so you don't need to duplicate all metadata.
Validation:
Use Twitter's Card Validator to preview how your cards will appear and troubleshoot issues.
For web scraping:
Twitter Card tags provide:
- Curated content summaries
- High-quality preview images optimized for sharing
- Author and creator attribution
- Insights into content promotion strategy
Our Meta Tag Extractor extracts both Twitter Card and Open Graph tags, showing how content is optimized for different platforms.