Twitter Cards: What You Need to Know
Twitter Cards control how your links unfurl when shared. Getting the image wrong means awkward crops, cut-off text, or your card falling back to a tiny thumbnail — all of which tank click-through rates.
Why images get cropped
Twitter renders summary_large_image at a 2:1 ratio but only shows the center ~70% on mobile. Anything outside the safe zone — logos, text, faces — gets cut. Use this tool's overlay to check before you post.
summary vs summary_large_image
Use summary for articles where the image is decorative. Use summary_large_image when your visual is the hook — product shots, infographics, news covers. It gets ~3× more engagement.
Twitter caches cards for ~7 days
Changed your og:image? Use the Twitter Card Validator (linked above) to force a cache refresh. Just paste your URL and hit Preview — Twitter re-fetches the tags.
Where to place meta tags
All <meta> tags go inside the <head> of your HTML. For CMS users: WordPress (Yoast/RankMath), Webflow (page settings), and Shopify (theme.liquid) all have dedicated fields so you don't touch code.