Facebook Page Cover Size – Wrong and Confusing Recommendations on Internet
Multiple website articles recommend different size dimensions for a Facebook cover photo which are wrong and may further confuse you.
Wrong Recommendations by Search Engines
When search the query “best facebook cover photo size” in Bing, the search engine top snippet recommends “851px by 315px” size - which is wrong.
If you perform a second search with this query in Bing:
“best size for facebook cover photo 2023”
The top result recommends, “For better quality, use an image that’s at least 1880 pixels by 704 pixels” size for facebook cover - which is also wrong in my opinion.
Let’s search in Google.
For the query, “facebook cover photo size”, the top result in Google Search recommends “851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall” image for Facebook cover photo, pulled from a Hubspot article.
Then I performed the following query in Google search.
“best facebook cover photo size 2023”
The top Google snippet suggested “820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall” photo for a Facebook cover - which is also not valid.
on the search results page, Snappa website recommends “820 pixels by 360 pixels” size for a Facebook cover image.
In short, there are different and confusing recommendation by Google and Bing search engines.
AI chatbots such as Google Bard, ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing also provide wrong answers for the correct Facebook cover size.
Facebook Recommendation for a Cover Photo Size
In fact, Facebook support article about the page cover size, is also misleading itself. On the one hand, it recommends 16:9 aspect ratio which is a correct recommendation as I tested it. However, on the other hand, it recommends “851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall’ which is not a 16:9 ratio.
According to 16:9 aspect ratio, a cover image having width of 851px, must have the height of 479 pixels.
If you closely understand the Facebook recommendation, it reads “Loads fastest”, which means that 851px x 315px is not the ideal size – because cover image looks a little blurry especially when a user views it in full screen.
Why 851 by 315 pixels is a wrong size for Facebook cover?
This cover size recommendation is not good, because:
Width and height of the Facebook cover image is cropped out on both mobile and desktop screens - as evident in following examples.
You are unable to determine the best portion of the cover to place important elements.
Example 1
The original dimensions of cover image of YouTube page (on Facebook), are 1193 by 523 pixels. You can view in following image that some portions of the image (both width and height) have been cropped out on mobile screen and desktop screen.
Example 2
The actual cover photo of McDonald's page has size dimensions of 1307 x 435 pixels. Both of its width and height are cropped out on both mobile phone and computer screen. In mobile display, some part of the text is also cut.
Final Thoughts
Have you noticed that the aspect ratio of cover images in both of above examples are different. This is why I assert that different recommendations of Facebook cover size on the internet have confused the designers.
In both above examples, Facebook cover photos have somewhat followed the approximate aspect ratio as in 851px by 315px recommendation. However, both cover images have not followed the width (851px) recommendation by Facebook.
What is Correct Size for Facebook Page Cover?
Please click the below lick to find the correct answer for FB page cover size.
Correct and Responsive Facebook Page Cover Size for all devices including mobile and desktop
YouTube Banner Best Size and Safe Areas.
