OGKit

Rules / og-image-forbidden · ruleset 2026-07

Image URL requires auth or returns 403

errorog-image-forbidden
Rule idog-image-forbidden
Severityerror
CategoryImages
Platformsall platforms
Needs humanno

What this is

Image URL requires auth or returns 403. OGKit rule og-image-forbidden (error). The id is a public API for the docs URL and CI --disable key; do not rename it.

Search phrases that should land on this page:

  • Image URL requires auth or returns 403
  • og:image 403
  • og:image forbidden
  • cannot fetch og:image

Why it matters

Crawlers are logged-out anonymous clients. A 401/403 image means a blank card for every share.

Which platforms are affected

All OGKit platform profiles, including major social, chat, and search crawlers that consume these tags.

Platform-specific crawler budgets and field priority live in the platform behaviour reference.

How to reproduce

  1. Request the og:image URL without cookies/auth. A 401/403 means crawlers cannot fetch it.
  2. CDN signed URLs that expire also fail social scrapes.

How to fix

Host the share image on a public CDN/path with no cookies, signing, or IP allowlists required for GET.

No single template snippet applies; use the measured and expected values in an OGKit finding.