🌐 Social Preview Card Verifier

Verifies how a page will unfurl on social platforms. Reads Open Graph + Twitter Card tags, validates each declared image for reachability, MIME and pixel dimensions, and returns a per-platform readiness verdict with every fault named.

Output is one social_preview_verdict row per result; billing is pay-per-event, the value event being one social preview check (a $0.02 start fee per run, then $0.05 per social preview check).

No login, no API key and no CAPTCHA solving are involved: the source is read logged-out with an identified contact User-Agent.

📊 Sample Output

Real rows from run BYEGjrbiL8hcX9rdl on build 0.1.5 (2026-09-17), the same input as the Quick start below — every value is as the source published it (emails masked, long text shortened):

page_url	final_url	title	description	outcome	input
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france	https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france	France travel advice	FCDO travel advice for France. Includes safety and security, insurance	answer	https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france
https://www.python.org	https://www.python.org	Welcome to Python.org	The official home of the Python Programming Language	answer	https://www.python.org
http://169.254.169.254/				blocked	http://169.254.169.254/

The run finished with the status message: PARTIAL: 2 billable verdict(s), 1 blocked (unbilled status), 0 unreachable, 0 unparseable of 3 target(s) | social_preview_check billable=2 | social_preview_check charged=2

✅ What you get

Each row is flat JSON with these fields (from the dataset schema and the sample run; a field the source does not publish for a given row is null):

• page_url (string/null) — e.g. https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france
• final_url (string/null) — e.g. https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france
• http_status (integer/string/null) — e.g. 200
• title (string/null) — e.g. France travel advice
• description (string/null) — e.g. FCDO travel advice for France. Includes safety and security, insurance, entry re
• canonical_url (string/null) — e.g. https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france
• og (string/null) — e.g. {"image":"https://www.gov.uk/assets/frontend/govuk-opengraph-image-4196a4d6333cf
• twitter (string/null) — e.g. {"card":"summary"}
• images_checked (string/null) — e.g. [{"url":"https://www.gov.uk/assets/frontend/govuk-opengraph-image-4196a4d6333cf9
• platform_readiness (string/null) — e.g. {"facebook":{"ready":true,"faults":[]},"linkedin":{"ready":true,"faults":[]},"x"
• ready_platforms (integer/string/null) — e.g. 4
• faults (string/null) — e.g. x: no twitter:card (falls back to OG, but card type unset)
• record_type (string) — e.g. social_preview_verdict
• source (string/null) — e.g. buyer-submitted page URLs
• outcome (string/null) — e.g. answer
• input (string/null) — e.g. https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france
• outcome_reason (string/null) — e.g. robots.txt for http://169.254.169.254 unavailable/forbidden — cannot confirm per
• observed_at (string/null) — null in every sample row
• terminal (string/null) — null in every sample row

Output

One row per target. A complete evidenced verdict carries outcome: answer; blocked / unreachable / unparseable targets carry that status and are not billed.

⚙️ Sample inputs

1. Quick start — the Store example (this is what the sample above came from)

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france",
    "https://www.python.org",
    "http://169.254.169.254/"
  ],
  "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenWatchBot/1.0; +https://apify.com/nexgenwatch)"
}

The sample run charged exactly: 1 × $0.02 apify-actor-start + 2 × $0.05 social_preview_check = $0.12 on the Free tier — every delivered row was billed.

2. A smaller, narrowed run

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france",
    "https://www.python.org",
    "http://169.254.169.254/"
  ],
  "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenWatchBot/1.0; +https://apify.com/nexgenwatch)"
}

A bounded run for checking the field shape before scheduling. userAgent narrows what the source is asked for.

3. A full-size run

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france",
    "https://www.python.org",
    "http://169.254.169.254/"
  ],
  "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenWatchBot/1.0; +https://apify.com/nexgenwatch)"
}

The same input run on a schedule; each run is billed only for what it delivers.

🧾 JSON sample record

One real record from run BYEGjrbiL8hcX9rdl, exactly as it lands in the dataset (emails masked, long text shortened):

{
  "page_url": "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france",
  "final_url": "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france",
  "http_status": 200,
  "title": "France travel advice",
  "description": "FCDO travel advice for France. Includes safety and security, insurance, entry requirements and legal differences.",
  "canonical_url": "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france",
  "og": "{\"image\":\"https://www.gov.uk/assets/frontend/govuk-opengraph-image-4196a4d6333cf92aaf720047f56cfd91b3532d7635fc21ebcf0d5897df6b5f77.png\",\"site_name\":\"GOV.UK\",\"type\":\"article\",\"url\":\"https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france\",\"title\":\"",
  "twitter": "{\"card\":\"summary\"}",
  "images_checked": "[{\"url\":\"https://www.gov.uk/assets/frontend/govuk-opengraph-image-4196a4d6333cf92aaf720047f56cfd91b3532d7635fc21ebcf0d5897df6b5f77.png\",\"reachable\":true,\"mime\":\"image/png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":630,\"fault\":null}]",
  "platform_readiness": "{\"facebook\":{\"ready\":true,\"faults\":[]},\"linkedin\":{\"ready\":true,\"faults\":[]},\"x\":{\"ready\":true,\"faults\":[]},\"slack\":{\"ready\":true,\"faults\":[]}}",
  "ready_platforms": 4,
  "faults": null,
  "record_type": "social_preview_verdict",
  "source": "buyer-submitted page URLs",
  "outcome": "answer",
  "input": "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france",
  "outcome_reason": null
}

🔧 How it works

Transport. Plain HTTPS from the Apify platform, no proxy. robots.txt is read first and a disallowed path is never fetched. Every request carries an identified contact User-Agent.

Terminal states. A run ends NORMAL, CAPPED (your cap was reached), PARTIAL (something was withheld and the message says what), GENUINE_EMPTY (the source was read and truly had nothing in scope) or BLOCKED (the source refused or changed shape — the run FAILS loud and bills nothing). A zero-row run is never reported as a silent success.

Charging. Each social preview check is charged at the moment it is pushed (social_preview_check); a row that fails to charge is not delivered, so the dataset count always equals the charged count.

What you submit

urls — page urls. Page URLs. Per page: title/description/canonical, Open Graph tags, Twitter Card tags; declared images are validated for reachability + MIME + dimensions -> a per-platform readiness verdict (Facebook/LinkedIn/X/Slack) with every fault NAMED. A complete verdict bills; a page blocked/unreachable is delivered as an unbilled status.

The runtime source gate (per submitted target)

Because you choose the targets, the source contract is enforced at run time, per origin, before any page is read:

• robots.txt is fetched once per origin and honored for our crawler. No robots / 404 = permitted; a disallowed path or an unavailable robots file = BLOCKED.
• SSRF guard — every host is resolved and must be a public address. Private, loopback, link-local, reserved and cloud-metadata addresses are refused before a socket opens.
• HTTP — bounded body reads; 403 / 429 / 5xx = BLOCKED; DNS / timeout / connection faults = UNREACHABLE.

A BLOCKED or UNREACHABLE target is delivered as an unbilled status row — never a broken-site verdict, and never charged.

Why this and not a generic crawler

social-preview/OG checkers exist as SEO features; this is a standalone per-platform readiness verdict with image reachability+MIME+dimension validation and named faults.

What is not done. No login, no cookie or CAPTCHA bypass, no private or personal-account data, no browser automation.

💰 Pricing example

Event	Free	Bronze	Silver	Gold
Actor Start (apify-actor-start)	$0.02	$0.02	$0.02	$0.02
Social Preview Check (social_preview_check)	$0.05	$0.04	$0.04	$0.03

Worked at the live Free-tier price:

• 3 social preview checks: $0.02 start + 3 × $0.05 = $0.17
• 25 social preview checks: $0.02 start + 25 × $0.05 = $1.27
• 100 social preview checks: $0.02 start + 100 × $0.05 = $5.02

A run that delivers zero rows charges the $0.02 start fee only. A BLOCKED run (source refused) fails loud and charges no value event. The start fee is charged once per GB of run memory; the default run memory is 1024 MB.

Yield on the sample run: PARTIAL: 2 billable verdict(s), 1 blocked (unbilled status), 0 unreachable, 0 unparseable of 3 target(s) | social_preview_check billable=2 | social_preview_check charged=2.

⚖️ Legal & ToS

This actor reads public data only. It collects only what the source publishes to any visitor, keeps to the source's robots rules (checked on every run), identifies itself with a contact User-Agent, and does not access accounts, private data or anything behind authentication. Use the output in line with the source's terms and your local law; the intended use is B2B research and monitoring.

❓ FAQ

Q: Do I need an API key or a login?
A: No. the input schema has no key field and the actor carries no secrets.

Q: Why did my run return 0 rows?
A: Read the run's status message. GENUINE_EMPTY means the source was read and had nothing in scope for your input; BLOCKED means the source refused and the run failed without billing a value event — retry later or narrow the input. A zero-row run bills the start fee only.

Q: How fresh is the data?
A: Every run reads the source live at run time; nothing is cached between runs. Put it on a schedule for a continuous feed.

Q: What formats can I export?
A: The dataset downloads as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or RSS from the run's Dataset tab or the Apify API, and any run can push to a webhook or integration.

Q: How is this different from the other web QA and enrichment tools actors?
A: Same output shape and billing model; this one covers Social Preview Card Verifier. The siblings under Related Actors cover the other sources or slices — run several on one schedule for a combined feed.

Q: Are there rate limits?
A: The actor paces itself against the source and honours its robots rules; there is no per-buyer limit beyond your Apify plan's concurrency.

🆘 Troubleshooting

• Run FAILED with BLOCKED → the source refused the request or changed its page shape → nothing was billed beyond the start fee; retry after a while, and if it persists open an Issue with the run id.
• Fewer rows than expected → the source had fewer items in scope → widen the input.
• Input validation error on start → a field is outside the schema's allowed values → start from the Quick start block and change one field at a time.
• Run TIMED-OUT → a very wide request on a slow day → raise the run timeout in Run options or narrow the input; what was delivered before the timeout is still in the dataset.

🔗 Related Actors

• 🧠 Review Sentiment Analyzer — Themes, Trends & Complaints — Turn any review set into themes, complaints, sentiment % and trends
• RSS Feed Contract Monitor — Checks a feed's health and contract: RSS/Atom/RDF shape validation, item canonicalization, a freshness score, duplicate GUID/link detection, ETag/Las…
• Sitemap Indexability Auditor — Audit whether the URLs in your sitemaps (or a plain URL list) are actually indexable — sitemaps are expanded (bounded nested depth + a hard URL cap)…
• Tech Stack Detector — Website Technology Lookup — Detect technologies used by websites across exactly 255 supported CMS, ecommerce, analytics, marketing, hosting, CDN, payment, and framework fingerpr…
• Tech Stack Enricher — Give it a list of company domains; it returns one CRM-ready record per domain describing
• Website Brand Kit API — Extracts a full brand system from a domain — logos, favicons, declared and pixel-derived colors, font declarations, theme color and social share imag…
• 🏢 About NexGenData — NexGen Watch is NexGenData's fleet of 256 public monitoring and lookup actors built on official sources, pay-per-result. Browse the catalog at apify.com/nexgenwatch.

⭐ Found this useful?

If this actor saved you a manual check, a quick review on the Apify Store helps other teams find it. Feature request or a source that changed? Open it from the Issues tab — every one is read.