Every post, page, attachment, and VideoPress video hosted on WordPress.com or via Jetpack now supports the oEmbed format through our public API.

oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites. The simple API allows a website to display embedded content (such as photos or videos) when a user posts a link to that resource, without having to parse the resource directly.

Endpoints:

Previous versions of this documentation pointed to https://public-api.wordpress.com/oembed/1.0/; this URL structure is deprecated due to this URL being part of WordPress.com’s implementation of the WordPress REST API.  Any future versions of WP.com oEmbed APIs will be built off of this infrastructure instead.

Query string parameters:

  • for: [required] please set to your domain or company name so we can know who our friends are.
  • url: [required] any *.wordpress.com, wp.me/*, videopress.com, and mapped [sub]domains hosted on WordPress.com, such as TechCrunch, CNN blogs and countless personal sites.
  • format: json or xml, defaults to json.
  • callback: when used with json, a javascript callback function you want wrapped around the output.
  • maxwidth and/or maxheight: max width and or height for images/thumbnails, defaults to 440x330px.
  • img_size: alternative to maxwidth/maxheight, as [width]x[height], defaults to 440x330px.
  • as_article: true or false, triggers the non-standard article extension for post/pages (see below).

The as_article parameter triggers a non-standard oEmbed output of type article. When content is served as_article, content can be found in a body property, instead of the standard html property. Other non-standard properties, such as related_topics, are also available. This output was originally made available for one of our partners, but is available to all.

Features:

  • in as_article mode, content is stripped of tags and limited to a ~256 characters excerpt (type=article, with body property).
  • in standard (as_article=false) mode, content is served as markup in full, or in excerpt if provided and as set by author (type=link, with html property).
  • supports posts and pages as link/html or article/body (see as_article argument).
  • supports attachments (picts/media/documents) as type link or type photo for images (gif, jpg, jpeg, png).
  • thumbnail for post and pages if present, from post thumb or 1st pict in content.
  • local and remote images are resized and/or re-cropped to desired dimensions, for consistency, then cached (including CDN) for speed.
  • support geolocation data, when made available by the author, through custom properties (geo_latitude, geo_longitude)
  • supports related_topics when as_article=true.

Response Examples:

Header tags:

We are now adding the related link tags to site headers, for posts, pages and attachments (for public sites only) so that 3rd-party sites can automatically discover the oEmbed representation equivalent of your content:

	<link href="http://public-api.wordpress.com/oembed/1.0/?format=json&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftekartist.org%2F2011%2F07%2F13%2Fyourself-truly-by-emma%2F&for=wpcom-auto-discovery" rel="alternate" type="application/json+oembed" />
	<link href="http://public-api.wordpress.com/oembed/1.0/?format=xml&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftekartist.org%2F2011%2F07%2F13%2Fyourself-truly-by-emma%2F&for=wpcom-auto-discovery" rel="alternate" type="application/xml+oembed" />