diff --git a/include/items.php b/include/items.php
index 5b27559357..0398f54588 100644
--- a/include/items.php
+++ b/include/items.php
@@ -903,6 +903,12 @@ function add_page_info_data($data) {
 	if ($no_photos AND ($data["type"] == "photo"))
 		return("");
 
+	// If the link contains BBCode stuff, make a short link out of this to avoid parsing problems
+	if (strpos($data["url"], '[') OR strpos($data["url"], ']')) {
+		require_once("include/network.php");
+		$data["url"] = short_link($data["url"]);
+	}
+
 	if (($data["type"] != "photo") AND is_string($data["title"]))
 		$text .= "[bookmark=".$data["url"]."]".trim($data["title"])."[/bookmark]";
 
diff --git a/mod/parse_url.php b/mod/parse_url.php
index 564b22c042..06e59b8691 100644
--- a/mod/parse_url.php
+++ b/mod/parse_url.php
@@ -187,6 +187,9 @@ function parseurl_getsiteinfo($url, $no_guessing = false, $do_oembed = true, $co
 				case "description":
 					$siteinfo["text"] = $attr["content"];
 					break;
+				case "thumbnail":
+					$siteinfo["image"] = $attr["content"];
+					break;
 				case "twitter:image":
 					$siteinfo["image"] = $attr["content"];
 					break;
@@ -421,6 +424,12 @@ function parse_url_content(&$a) {
 
 	$url= $siteinfo["url"];
 
+	// If the link contains BBCode stuff, make a short link out of this to avoid parsing problems
+	if (strpos($url, '[') OR strpos($url, ']')) {
+		require_once("include/network.php");
+		$url = short_link($url);
+	}
+
 	$sitedata = "";
 
 	if($siteinfo["title"] == "") {