X’s Updated Link Preview Format, Which Removes Headlines and Descriptions, is Now Live

Look, I’m unsure how quickly that is rolling out, and when exactly all users will see the change, nor how it should impact link previews retrospectively, which can even affect your approach.

But in line with Pop Base, X is now rolling out its latest display of link previews in-stream, which can remove the headline and preview text, and only show the header image out of your post.

As you possibly can see in this instance, the brand new format will display the header image from the post after you add your URL into your tweet, with the domain address superimposed over the image.

Which looks like an odd strategy to approach news content sharing, which has long been the lifeblood of the app. But X owner Elon Musk is keen to get more people posting original updates direct to the app, so fairly than provide any incentive, the X team is seeking to make it increasingly less desirable to post off-platform links inside your updates.

Which, after all, is just about a non-negotiable for the vast majority of social media managers. Referring users back to your owned properties is the perfect option for maximizing business growth and monetization, and for many, that may’t be replicated with native posting options. Even X’s latest ad revenue share program can’t replace the expanded advantages of such, so it’s not an amazing update for many of us. All of us. Any of us.

In any event, it appears that evidently X is moving ahead with it either way, though as noted, I personally haven’t seen this update take effect within the app as yet. I’m in Australia, though, and perhaps they simply haven’t updated the APAC servers, but based on reports, more users are indeed seeing X’s latest link format rolling out over the previous couple of hours.

That likely implies that you’ll need to vary your posting approach, to incorporate more context within the post, versus counting on your headline and preview copy to assist drive clicks.

Perhaps that’s not an enormous change, by way of direct workflow (just cut and paste the preview into the update). But it surely is a big shift nonetheless, and it should have an effect in your post response rates, irrespective of the way you approach it.

It’s not good, and I don’t think that it’s helpful for the user experience. But essentially, link previews at the moment are only images, which still take up more room within the post that may drive clicks. But you’ll must add more direct descriptions of what users are tapping through to.

UPDATE: It’s now in effect for me, and it does impact retrospective posts. And it’s ugly, real ugly.