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Embedding and web termsUpdated

oEmbed

Also called: oEmbed endpoint, auto-embed

Definition

oEmbed is an open format that lets a website turn a pasted link into embedded content. The site asks the content provider's oEmbed endpoint about the URL and gets back data such as a title, a thumbnail and, for rich content, ready-made HTML.

How an oEmbed request works

The specification suggests consumers load returned HTML in an iframe on a separate domain to avoid cross-site scripting risks.

  1. 1

    Someone pastes a URL

    For example into a blog editor or a chat app, which acts as the oEmbed consumer.

  2. 2

    The consumer finds the endpoint

    Either from a list of known providers or from a <link> tag of type application/json+oembed in the page's head.

  3. 3

    It sends a GET request

    The URL goes to the endpoint as the url query parameter.

  4. 4

    The provider answers

    The response has a type (photo, video, link or rich) plus fields such as title and thumbnail. Video and rich responses include an html field with the embed markup.

LinkedIn and oEmbed

For embedding, LinkedIn's help center describes copying code from “Embed this post” on desktop and doesn't document an oEmbed endpoint. LinkedIn also isn't in the public oEmbed provider registry as of November 3, 2026. So a tool that relies on oEmbed generally shows a pasted LinkedIn post link as a plain link or preview card rather than the post itself.

It works the other way round, though: when someone shares your page on LinkedIn, the share box reads oEmbed data and Open Graph tags from your page to build the preview.

Embedding LinkedIn posts without oEmbed

  • Copy the code from “Embed this post” and paste it into an HTML block.
  • Use the embed code generator to turn a post link into sized embed code.
  • For your latest posts rather than one, use a feed widget.
  • Or link to the post with a short quote, which works anywhere, including email.

Related terms

Embed code
Embed code is a snippet of HTML you paste into a web page to display content hosted somewhere else, such as a video, a social media post or a widget. It's usually an iframe tag, a script tag with a placeholder element, or a combination.
Open Graph tags
Open Graph tags are <meta> tags in a page's HTML head, such as og:title and og:image, that tell social networks which title, description and image to show when someone shares the page's link. LinkedIn uses them to build link previews.
iframe
An iframe (inline frame) is an HTML element, <iframe>, that displays a separate web page inside the current one. The embedded page loads from its own address and runs as its own document, kept apart from the host page's styles and scripts.
LinkedIn activity ID
A LinkedIn activity ID is the long number that identifies one post in LinkedIn's feed. You'll find it in the post's link, after “activity-” in a /posts/ address or after urn:li:activity: in a /feed/update/ address.

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