Troubleshooting

When metadata looks wrong, the cause is usually one of five things: the page did not render the right variant, the metadata is not present in the initial HTML, the request timed out, the site blocked automation, or the field you want is simply not exposed in a normalized way.

For timeouts, blocked sites, auth/plan errors, and debug headers that apply to all workflows, see common troubleshooting.

If a page is client-rendered, start by forcing browser rendering:

microlink https://vercel.com&meta.title&meta.description&prerender

curl -G "https://api.microlink.io" \
  -d "url=https://vercel.com" \
  -d "meta.title=true" \
  -d "meta.description=true" \
  -d "prerender=true"

import mql from '@microlink/mql'

const { data } = await mql('https://vercel.com', {
  meta: {
    title: true,
    description: true
  },
  prerender: true
})

import requests

url = "https://api.microlink.io/"

querystring = {
    "url": "https://vercel.com",
    "meta.title": "true",
    "meta.description": "true",
    "prerender": "true"
}

response = requests.get(url, params=querystring)

print(response.json())

require 'uri'
require 'net/http'

base_url = "https://api.microlink.io/"

params = {
  url: "https://vercel.com",
  meta.title: "true",
  meta.description: "true",
  prerender: "true"
}

uri = URI(base_url)
uri.query = URI.encode_www_form(params)

http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
http.use_ssl = true

request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
response = http.request(request)

puts response.body

<?php

$baseUrl = "https://api.microlink.io/";

$params = [
    "url" => "https://vercel.com",
    "meta.title" => "true",
    "meta.description" => "true",
    "prerender" => "true"
];

$query = http_build_query($params);
$url = $baseUrl . '?' . $query;

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
    CURLOPT_URL => $url,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_ENCODING => "",
    CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
    CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
    CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
    CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "GET"
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$err = curl_error($curl);

curl_close($curl);

if ($err) {
    echo "cURL Error #: " . $err;
} else {
    echo $response;
}

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net/http"
    "net/url"
    "io"
)

func main() {
    baseURL := "https://api.microlink.io"

    u, err := url.Parse(baseURL)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    q := u.Query()
    q.Set("url", "https://vercel.com")
    q.Set("meta.title", "true")
    q.Set("meta.description", "true")
    q.Set("prerender", "true")
    u.RawQuery = q.Encode()

    req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", u.String(), nil)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    client := &http.Client{}
    resp, err := client.Do(req)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    defer resp.Body.Close()

    body, err := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    fmt.Println(string(body))
}

import mql from '@microlink/mql'

const { data } = await mql('https://vercel.com', {
  meta: {
    title: true,
    description: true
  },
  prerender: true
})

If a field is still missing after that:

Sometimes the metadata is correct for the page Microlink saw, but not for the variant you expected.

Common causes:

If that sounds like the problem, continue with private pages and use headers, x-api-header-*, or proxy as needed.

Check the full error codes reference or see common troubleshooting for timeout, auth, and plan errors. If the issue is auth-specific, return to private pages.

See the guides overview for more Microlink guides.