The Like button is a simple plugin that will let people quickly share content with their friends on Facebook.

When someone clicks on a Like button on a site, a connection is created in the Graph between the content and that person: an Open Graph Like action will be published, and stories will appear on that person's timeline and their friends' news feeds. This story will link back to the site and drive distribution of content.

The story created by the Like action can be enriched by using meta tags to turn a simple HTML page into an Open Graph object. If you plan to use the Like button on any page on your website, you should follow the guide to including meta tags to ensure published stories look great in news feed, on Timeline, and get the best possible distribution from people. Also consider reading our best practices document on maximizing distribution which will give you hints on other things you can do to improve interactions between your content and Facebook.

The Like button itself displays a count of all the likes and shares of the content, and a few other metrics which are listed in the Frequently Asked Questions below. An option to comment on the story will appear when the Like button is clicked, if it is configured correctly - letting people comment after liking will give the published story extra prominence in news feed.

You can use the configurator below to customize the layout and style of Like buttons, and grab a small snippet of code to insert into your HTML pages to implement the plugin in minutes.

Get the Code

There are three different ways to implement the Like button: using HTML5, XFBML (a special Facebook markup) and iframe.

HTML5 and XFBML versions are more versatile, but requires use of the JavaScript SDK (snippets to use this are included in the configurator. These versions re-size height according to whether there are profile pictures to display, give you the ability (through the Javascript SDK) to listen for edge.create events so that you know in real time when a user clicks the Like button, and enable the comment box that appears after clicking.

To get started, just use the configurator below to get code to add to your site:

Attributes

• href - the URL to like. The XFBML version defaults to the current page. Note: After July 2013 migration, href should be an absolute URL
• send - specifies whether to include a Send button with the Like button. This only works with the XFBML version.
• layout - there are three options.
  • standard - displays social text to the right of the button and friends' profile photos below. Minimum width: 225 pixels. Minimum increases by 40px if action is 'recommend' by and increases by 60px if send is 'true'. Default width: 450 pixels. Height: 35 pixels (without photos) or 80 pixels (with photos).
  • button_count - displays the total number of likes to the right of the button. Minimum width: 90 pixels. Default width: 90 pixels. Height: 20 pixels.
  • box_count - displays the total number of likes above the button. Minimum width: 55 pixels. Default width: 55 pixels. Height: 65 pixels.
• show_faces - specifies whether to display profile photos below the button (standard layout only)
• width - the width of the Like button.
• action - the verb to display on the button. Options: 'like', 'recommend'
• font - the font to display in the button. Options: 'arial', 'lucida grande', 'segoe ui', 'tahoma', 'trebuchet ms', 'verdana'
• colorscheme - the color scheme for the like button. Options: 'light', 'dark'
• ref - a label for tracking referrals; must be less than 50 characters and can contain alphanumeric characters and some punctuation (currently +/=-.:_). The ref attribute causes two parameters to be added to the referrer URL when a user clicks a link from a stream story about a Like action:
  • fb_ref - the ref parameter
  • fb_source - the stream type ('home', 'profile', 'search', 'ticker', 'tickerdialog' or 'other') in which the click occurred and the story type ('oneline' or 'multiline'), concatenated with an underscore.

FAQ

How do I know when a user clicks a Like button?

If you are using the XFBML version of the button, you can subscribe to the 'edge.create' event through FB.Event.subscribe.

When will users have the option to add a comment to the like?

If you are using the XFBML version of the Like button, users will always have the option to add a comment. If you are using the iframe version of the button, users will have the option to comment if you are using the standard layout. If users do add a comment, the story published back to Facebook is given more prominence.

What analytics are available about the Like button?

If you visit facebook.com/insights and register your domain, you can see the number of likes on your domain each day and the demographics of who is clicking the Like button.

Can I link the Like button to my Facebook page?

Yes. Simply specify the URL of your Facebook page in the href parameter of the button.

What is the best way to know which Like button on my page generated the traffic?

Add the 'ref' parameter to the plugin (see "Attributes" above).

Examples:

<fb:like ref="top_left"></fb:like>
<iframe src="...&ref=top_left"></iframe>

When a user clicks a link back to your website, we will pass back both the ref value as a fb_ref parameter and the fb_source parameter in the referrer URL. Example:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?fb_ref=top_left&fb_source=profile_oneline

Aggregated stream stories contain all ref parameters, concatenated with commas.

When does Facebook scrape my page?

Facebook needs to scrape your page to know how to display it around the site.

Facebook scrapes your page every 24 hours to ensure the properties are up to date. The page is also scraped when an admin for the Open Graph page clicks the Like button and when the URL is entered into the Facebook URL Debugger. Facebook observes cache headers on your URLs - it will look at "Expires" and "Cache-Control" in order of preference. However, even if you specify a longer time, Facebook will scrape your page every 24 hours.

The user agent of the scraper is: "facebookexternalhit/1.1 (+http://www.facebook.com/externalhit_uatext.php)"

How do I display the Like button in different languages?

If you are using the XFBML version include the language code when you instantiate the library. Replace ‘en_US’ in this line with the correct locale code:

'//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';

If you are using the iframe version include a locale parameter with the proper country code in the src URL. Example:

src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?locale=fr_FR&..."

You may need to adjust the width of the Like button to accommodate different languages.

What makes up the number shown on my Like button?

The number shown is the sum of:

• The number of likes of this URL
• The number of shares of this URL (this includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook)
• The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about this URL

When I click the Like button, the popup window (or "flyout") doesn't show. Why?

If the Like button is placed near the edge of an HTML element with the overflow property set to hidden, the flyout may be clipped or completely hidden when the button is clicked. This can be remedied by setting the overflow property to a value other than hidden, such as visible, scroll, or auto.