Add Metadata to Your News Articles

Add HTML meta tags to an article to provide more details about the article including content type, subscription requirements, and more. Adding tags will help Facebook organize your indexed article and deliver them to the most appropriate audience.

Recommendations

HTML meta tags are optional but encouraged.
Some metadata tags are used across mutliple Facebook products. Before adding or changing tags, make sure that it won’t affect your other Facebook product integrations.
Because the canonical URL will be resolved during the indexing process, use the og:url to help identify the canonical URL for an article.

Examples

Basic HTML Meta Tag Integration

The following example is for an article that is free to everyone and is an opinion piece.

<head>
  <meta property="og:url" content="https://www.example.com/article" />
  <meta property="article:content_tier" content="free" />
  <meta property="article:opinion" content="true"/>
  ...
</head>

Advanced HTML Meta Tag Integration

The following example is for an article that is a news article, contains Sports and Tennis content, is metered, allowing non-subscribers to view a select number of articles for free before seeing a paywall, and is targeted for the city of Bath is the county of Somerset.

<head>
  <meta property="article:opinion" content="false"/>
  <meta property="article:tag" content="Sports"/>
  <meta property="article:tag" content="Tennis"/>
  <meta property="article:content_tier" content=”metered”/>
  <meta property="article:location" content="city:bath,somerset"/>
  ...
</head>

Reference

The following tables name and describe the HTML Meta Tags property attributes and content values available for your article's source code.

Syntax

`Property` Attribute and `Content` Value

Property Value	Content Value	Description
`article:content_tier` string	`free` [default], `locked`, or `metered` Learn more about content tiering.	Describes the tier status for an article. Note: If you are currently using the Instant Articles Paywall, be aware that the `content_tier` tag is the same tag for both News Indexing and the Instant Article Paywall. If you are actively using the paywall, make sure the tags are still correct when setting up News Indexing. If you no longer use the Instant Article Paywall, visit your Facebook Page, Publishing Tools > Instant Articles > Subscriptions to make sure the paywall is paused.
`article:location` string	The value can be one of the following: `district:DISTRICT,CITY,COUNTY` `city:CITY,COUNTY` `county:COUNTY` `region:3-LETTER-ABBREVIATION`	Defines the location to target for the article. Recommended for geo tagging content. This allows Facebook target the article to people to whom it would be most relevant and to develop and improve upon machine learning-based methods for identifying local content. To provide multiple locations, a location-tag for each location needs to be added.
`article:opinion` boolean	`true` or `false`	Indicates whether the article is an opinion piece or not. Recommended.
`article:tag` string	Values can be one or more of the following: `Animals & Pets` `Architecture` `Baseball` `Basketball` `Beauty` `Books & Literature` `Business, Finance, & Economics` `Car Racing` `Cars & Trucks` `Children & Parenting` `Crime & Tragedy` `Dance` `Education & Learning` `Fashion` `Fashion & Style` `Fitness & Workouts` `Food & Drink` `Food Personalities & Chefs` `Football (American Rules)` `Football (Association Rules, Soccer)` `Games, Puzzles, & Play` `Golf` `Health & Medical` `History & Philosophy`	Describes the article content. Note: To use multiple tags, each tag must be contained within its own meta tag. `Holidays & Celebrations` `Home & Garden` `Music & Audio` `Performing Arts` `Pet Ownership` `Poetry` `Politics` `Relationships, Friends, & Family` `Religion & Spirituality` `Science & Engineering Disciplines` `Science & Tech` `Social Issues` `Social Media` `Sports` `Technology` `Tennis` `Theater` `Travel & Leisure Activities` `TV & Movies` `Vehicles & Transportation` `Video Games` `Visual Arts, Architecture & Crafts`
`og:url` string Required for syndicated content.	The source URL	Defines the canonical URL that points to the original source for the article. For syndicated content.