Introduction: The sheer volume of link sharing online allows ideas, news, and more to spread rapidly across the web. At the same time, as link sharing has exploded, so have the links that spread malware, steal data, and enable hacking attacks. Scams often involve users receiving sketchy links that aim to compromise account information. To address this growing threat, tech companies now commonly use for their users to review the shared link. link preview services But why do you want users to preview the link before clicking? : To obtain a visual preview of the content, they will access it by clicking on the link. This allows users to have an idea of the contents of the URL, which can help them decide if they want to open the link or not. Visual Preview of the link content : To notify users before clicking on malicious content. Prevent from clicking malicious content Generally, link scanners help to check the links against databases of reported threats, helping to identify & notify dangerous links. This helps users avoid becoming victims of scams and hacking attacks. Though no solution can be 100% accurate, link previews that include link scanning have become an essential line of defense in an interconnected world where users share links constantly. You can have a look , where we discussed the benefits of enabling Secure Link Previews within applications. here ApyHub has Link Preview API that helps by: Fetching metadata from any URL passed to include title, description, image, site name, mediaType, contentType, associated images & videos, and favicons. Providing a boolean value as - which indicates whether the URL has been reported as malicious. reported_malicious Enabling frontend applications to make API calls while avoiding request blocks. The process of integrating the is quite straightforward. Let's walk through a practical example using . This hands-on approach will illustrate the process in a real-world context, making it easier to understand and implement. Link Preview API NodeJS Step 1: Set up a NodeJS project. Let’s create a new directory and initialize a NodeJS project. mkdir link-preview-api-example cd link-preview-api-example Step 2: Install the required libraries. To install all the required dependencies, run this command on the terminal of your project folder. npm init -y npm install axios Once we run it initializes a new Node.js project by automatically creating a file with default values. command triggers the installation of the Axios dependency. npm init -y 'package.json' npm install axios : It’s a robust library pivotal for making HTTP requests. We will use this for communicating with the Link Preview API. Axios Step 3: Create a file named in your project folder. linkPreview.js The next step is to create a new file; for example, create a file and write the logic function of sending the URL to Link Preview API. linkPreview.js // linkPreview.js const axios = require('axios'); const apiUrl = 'https://api.apyhub.com/extract/url/preview'; const requestData = { url:'https://press.farm/founder-ceo-netflix-reed-hastings-definitive-startup-guide-successful-entrepreneurs/', //required User_agent: 'google-bot', accept_language: 'en-US', images_property_type: 'twitter', secure_mode: true, allow_redirect: true }; const headers = { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'apy-token': 'YOUR-APY-TOKEN' }; axios.post(apiUrl, requestData, { headers }) .then(response => { console.log('Link Preview API Response:', response.data); }) .catch(error => { console.error('Error:', error.message); }); Let’s understand the requested data inputs and their purpose. Parameter Description URL The URL of the webpage for which you want to generate a preview. images_property_type Fetches images only with the specific property. ( Twitter or OG) user_agent The User-Agent header value of the HTTP request. (ex: user_agent: "google-bot") secure_mode If set to false, disables a safety check for malicious URLs and reports any found threats. This is true by default for user protection. accept_language Specify the language for the HTTP request, such as "en-US" allow_redirects If set to true, It allows redirects to a maximum of one URL, e.g. → https://google.com/ https://www.google.com/ Step 4: Run the project Once done with adding the Link Preview API interface, you can now test the implementation. In your terminal, run: node index.js Step 5: Once the request is sent, the response will be returned in JSON. Link Preview API Response:{ "data": { "url": "https://press.farm/founder-ceo-netflix-reed-hastings-definitive-startup-guide-successful-entrepreneurs/", "title": "Former Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings' Guide for Successful Entrepreneurs", "siteName": "Pressfarm", "description": "Reed Hastings has overcome his fair share of challenges in his quest to take over the on-demand streaming business. Here's what he's learnt.", "mediaType": "article", "contentType": "text/html", "images": [], "videos": [], "favicons": [ "https://press.farm/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Pressfarm-favicon.jpg" ], "charset": "UTF-8", "reported_malicious": false } } And that's it! It was easy, right? Now, you can confidently preview links in your applications, safeguarding against potentially harmful content. Also, do not forget to handle the errors in case the URL is malformed - in such cases, the API will return appropriate errors. Also published . here
