Images not visible in amazon link cards

Developer help
1
  • naturanovit.net
  • I use ghost pro, so assuming it’s the latest version
  • Using the casper theme 4.1.1

I’m trying to include third party links in my post, including some amazon affiliate links. Here it is: Site unavailable

Screen Shot 2021-09-30 at 12.59.44 PM
Screen Shot 2021-09-30 at 12.59.44 PM840×722 128 KB

(amazon link on the bottom)

I just copied and pasted the links in the editor. For most non-amazon sites, you can see that the links auto-formatted to look quite nice, including an image. Their height is capped, etc.

However, the amazon links look terrible. No image, and some of them extend vertically way too far.

Amazon links are some of the most common on the internet. I can’t imagine I’m the only one with this problem.

How can I format the links to look good?

FWIW, the same thing happens with non-affiliate amazon links.

2

Any update on this? Having the same issue with Amazon links. Would be awesome if there was an actual Amazon Widget or something…

1 Like
3

I’ll add a ‘me too’ here.

4

So this looks like an Amazon failure to set meta content correctly. If you view source, here’s what’s generating the content:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.amazon.com/Huasco-Extra-Virgin-Olive-Oil/dp/B08G5B1JDL" />
<meta name="description" content="Amazon.com : Extra Virgin Olive Oil by HUASCO |First Cold Press - From Chile, 33.8 Fl Oz (1000 Ml) : Grocery &amp; Gourmet Food" />
<meta name="title" content="Amazon.com : Extra Virgin Olive Oil by HUASCO |First Cold Press - From Chile, 33.8 Fl Oz (1000 Ml) : Grocery &amp; Gourmet Food" />

Conspicuously missing is an image link to be used by search engines.

1 Like
5

Amazon is notoriously bad at making consistent data available and they change their markup constantly across different products.

Ghost’s embed service uses metascraper to fetch the details for the bookmark cards. However we don’t currently use the metascraper-amazon package because when we first implemented the bookmark card that package produced worse results than just the standard packages. There’s a long-running issue in the metascraper-amazon package for improving Amazon image fetches.

Any PRs to Ghost or the upstream packages that improve the Amazon situation are very welcome :pray:

3 Likes
6

Any updates? I am also having trouble with amazon links.

7

Bump … concerned I may need to revert to Wordpress and plugins to make this work as I’m an affiliate marketer.

8

I have started working on solving this issue.

9

That’s great! If you have a fix, please open a pull request in the repo!

10

@Cathy_Sarisky

I’d like to clarify the core issue here.

This issue is not only about affiliate linking - it’s about basic article formatting and reader experience.

For example, when writing book reviews or articles that reference Amazon Kindle products, it’s natural to include a link card with a thumbnail and title. This provides visual context for the reader and helps the post look polished and professional.

Without a thumbnail preview, the article looks incomplete or broken, and the reading experience is degraded.

I would really appreciate it if we could revisit this issue from the above angle.
I’m happy to provide more technical details or update my issue and PR if needed.

Thank you again!

11

Hey @hshiozawa

I’m not a member of the core team – just a volunteer moderator and Ghost fangirl. (I run Spectral Web Services, too!)

The core team has said that they really do want community contributions, but sometimes they struggle to evaluate and merge them, and I know they’re currently really busy. Sometimes it takes a few weeks. Sometimes longer.

I see that Steve (9larsons), who is a member of the core team, left you some comments a couple weeks back. I’m a little confused by that comment chain - it seems like you’re saying that the timeout needs to be increased TO 10 seconds, and Steve is saying that the timeout IS 10 seconds. You might want to clarify over on Github (be sure to @ him, as he might not see the comment otherwise).

1 Like