Nosto uses a multi-step process to ensure all aggregated images that are displayed are valid and working as expected.

The first process is triggered when a UGC user views content through a widget or through content moderation. If the user's browser cannot successfully download or display an image, the UGC Javascript display informs the server that an image for a specific tile has failed to load.

This process is called crowdsourcing and relies on UGC users to notify the system of any issues. To avoid potential abuse of this method, only one notice per IP address per tile per hour is allowed.

In step two, the server will process the information provided by UGC's Javascript display and validate the image from the Server side. If the servers fail to load the image from the tile’s original URL within approximately 7 seconds the tile will be marked as, 'Disabled' within the content moderation table. The tile’s disabled reason will also be set to "Broken image”.

For Instagram and Facebook images which are flagged as broken by the crowdsource process, an additional step occurs whereby the Nosto system attempts to validate the URL of the tile, and if it’s deemed as broken from the server side, it will try to retrieve a fresh “good” URL from the Instagram and Facebook APIs. If this also fails then, as above the tile will be marked as 'Disabled' and the tile’s disabled reason will also be set to "Broken image”.

This process has been put in place to protect client's who are using Event Screens, Widgets and other display methods from creating a poor user experience. For example, If the third-party service which hosts images can’t keep up with the widget traffic or a widget has been improperly configured to display many oversized (eg. high res or with a large file size) images, Nosto will ensure the speed, stability and quality of the content it’s attempting to display.

For example, if your third-party service that hosts images is unable to keep up with the Widget traffic, or a Widget has been improperly configured to display several oversized (eg. high res or with a large file size) images, then your content may be flagged as 'broken'.

For any further questions or queries, please send an email to support@nosto.com and our support team will get back to you.