How does TSF choose a social image?

Definition: The Social Image Fallback URL is The SEO Framework's site-wide image setting under SEO Settings, Social Meta Settings, General. TSF uses that URL for a shared page when the page has no better social image configured.

Key facts

• The setup guide places the setting in the Social Meta Settings box, under the General tab, and says that TSF uses the image when no image is set up on pages. The SEO Framework's setup documentation describes the field as a Social Image Fallback URL.
• The current knowledge-base path is SEO Settings, Social Meta Settings, General, Social Image Settings. There, the fallback image URL is for embeds when a page has no better image, according to The SEO Framework's Twitter Cards documentation.
• Global settings define defaults. A page, post, term, homepage or post type archive can override the social image URL in its own SEO settings.
• When Twitter Card output is enabled and an image is available, TSF outputs one twitter:image value. That value is the image URL fetched for the embed.

What is the fallback order?

TSF treats the global URL as a default. The page-level SEO settings can override the social image URL for specific content, so a page-specific value is used when one is configured. The global URL then covers a page with no better image. The knowledge-base documentation describes this relationship as global defaults with per-page overrides.

The setup guide describes the fallback as a site-wide setting in the Social Meta Settings box. It also says that TSF automatically fills metadata according to the website and its posts, pages and archives. The guide leaves the order of image discovery inside a page unspecified.

Where do you set the Social Image Fallback URL?

The setup guide says that TSF uses one page for all its settings and divides those settings into meta boxes. In WordPress, open the SEO settings page, find Social Meta Settings, select the General tab, then choose the image through Select Image. The current knowledge-base path is:

SEO Settings → Social Meta Settings → General → Social Image Settings

The setup guide asks for a high-resolution fallback image. The field is global, so changing it changes the default image used for content that has no more specific social image value.

What does a social platform read?

TSF's Twitter Cards documentation explains that Twitter Card tags are metadata tags in a page's head. When a URL is shared, the crawler reads those tags and builds an embed with a title, description and image. The image value is a URL that the crawler fetches.

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Example article title">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="A short summary of the page.">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://example.com/social-image.jpg">

The same documentation says that twitter:image can fall back to og:image when the Twitter-specific tag is missing. This describes metadata interoperability after the page is generated. The global fallback remains the source configured in Social Meta Settings.

How can you check the result?

View the published page source and look in the head for twitter:image. The documentation's troubleshooting sequence says to confirm that twitter:card, twitter:title, twitter:description and twitter:image appear there. Open the image URL directly as well. The same guidance says that the image must be public, fast and accessible without cookies.

If a page has a page-level social image, compare that URL with the global setting. A difference is consistent with the documented rule that per-page settings override global defaults. If the page has no page-level value, compare its twitter:image URL with the Social Image Fallback URL saved under the General social settings.

Related terms

• Image alternative text
• max-image-preview

FAQ

Does a page-specific image replace the global fallback?

Yes. You can set a social image in the page's SEO settings, and the documented per-page value overrides the global default.

Where do you change the fallback image?

You can open SEO Settings, Social Meta Settings, General, and Social Image Settings, then choose an image with Select Image.

What should you inspect if the image is missing from a preview?

Check the published page source for twitter:image, then open its URL directly. The documented checks include public access, speed and access without cookies.

Sources

1. The SEO Framework, "First-time setup instructions for The SEO Framework", n.d.
2. The SEO Framework, "Twitter Cards and X sharing", 13 October 2026

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