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I have built several websites, and for some reason none of them will post to my wall anymore when I "like" a blog post, or like the site in general. (Using Iframe) Example:

http://madhatterulti.com/

http://www.reyniersaudio.com/blog/

The funny thing is, I had a friend try it, and it posted to his wall fine. Though, this person did not have timeline enabled, and I do.

Anyone have any ideas?

It appears the "like" appears in my "activity log". By default, the "like" is set to be "allowed on timeline". I am able to change this to "hidden from timeline". This setting implies to me that it should be showing up on the timeline.. yet it is not. Also, I can change the setting to "featured on timeline", but once again, this does not work.

Peter O.
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Roeland
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2 Answers2

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It seems that the way the Like button works has changed (or not really!). I tried liking one of your blog posts and my own website and nothing appeared on the timeline. But reading the Like button introduction:

The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your website.

enter image description here
And indeed, it appeared on my friend's news feed and ticker!

I suppose we cannot consider the timeline as the new news feed. Because it's not!
AND it seems that there are two ways a liked URL is going to appear on the user timeline which are
1) when the user has something to say, i.e when the user writes something along with the like:
enter image description here

2) if you click on the More Recent Activity block. And allow this activity to appear on your timeline.

Now maybe there are other cases (that I'm not aware of!) for a liked URL to appear in the user's timeline directly (maybe with custom Open Graph objects or a custom Facebook script that would decide for you?).

ifaour
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  • The funny thing is, this worked about a week ago. It WOULD post to my timeline. In addition, if I go to my "activity log" it shows that I liked something. It also supposedly lets me "allow it on the timeline" which is the setting by default.. yet it does not show up on my timeline. – Roeland Feb 27 '12 at 16:45
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    Well, then that would mean it's either a bug or a new *smart* algorithm from Facebook to determine what to show on your timeline! – ifaour Feb 28 '12 at 19:41
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    +1 for a neat answer. @Roeland: if they appear on your friend's news feed, your need(social marketing) is probably catered for as well. – Chibueze Opata Mar 03 '12 at 20:19
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I linted one of your URLs and it states the the fb:admin and fb:app_id should be specified for better click-thru rates

Like Button Warnings That Should Be Fixed

Admins And App ID Missing: fb:admins and fb:app_id tags are missing. These tags are necessary for Facebook to render a News Feed story that generates a high clickthrough rate

http://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/og/object?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reyniersaudio.com%2Fblog%2Frecording-computer%2Frecording-computer-cpu-benchmarks-sandy-bridge-nehalem-and-bulldozer-processors-compared

I have timeline enabled and it did no post to my timeline at all. Strange huh?

EDIT

Based upon some comments from Roeland on other responses:

The funny thing is, this worked about a week ago. It WOULD post to my timeline. In addition, if I go to my "activity log" it shows that I liked something. It also supposedly lets me "allow it on the timeline" which is the setting by default.. yet it does not show up on my timeline

I'm wondering if it could have something to do with too many people reporting the stories as spam, or the app id was hijacked and used for spam purposes (or the domain/ip being marked as abusive, etc). Maybe this has caused Facebook to become more cautious when "showing" this liked content. ifaour has seen the content on his feed and timeline, however I could not get it to show.

My concern is that no app_id was specified and not admin was specified either. You can reuse the same app_id with many comments/like buttons (contrary to your assertion that you must have a new app id for each like button...not sure where that came from).

DMCS
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  • This may be true, but I never had to set these parameters before. I never had to create an app for every page I had like buttons on. – Roeland Feb 27 '12 at 16:47
  • I dont think this is because of spam or hijacking because I am having this behavior across any "like" button I have ever implemented. It does work with people who do NOT have timeline enabled. – Roeland Feb 28 '12 at 08:10
  • @Roeland, I believe what DMCS says on (his/her?) answer is correct, you need to add the fb:app_id tag, but I would take it one step further. You don't have to create a new app for every single url, just create one app and create the like action in your App's Settings. Once you do that you should see likes on your timeline. Facebook is constantly changing things so that's why it might have stopped working for you. I'm pretty sure this works, because I did it not long ago. Try it and let me know if it works for you. – derickito Mar 02 '12 at 22:29
  • I have one site using the fb:app_id tag and one not. In both instances, the stories only appear on the timeline if text is entered as a comment along with the story. If this comment is not added, the story only appears in the activity section of FB and not on the timeline. –  Mar 06 '13 at 21:12