When you use people search on LinkedIn, sometimes you see the “Out of your network” note (as seen on the left here) and at other times you see that the profile is Private. In both cases LinkedIn suggests that you should upgrade your account to see more. Though Glen Cathey posted an excellent exploration of “private” profiles a while ago, many of us keep thinking that those profiles we find by searching are indeed private, i.e. their owners have changed their settings not to have a public URL (meaning a URL visible to search engines) for their LinkedIn profiles.
The truth is, that private profiles have NO correlation whatsoever with profiles marked “Private” in search results.
I have been exploring out-of-network and “private” profiles lately – and you should, too, before you decide to upgrade your LinkedIn account. I will present a webinar on June 8th, 2010 to show a variety of search techniques for a basic LinkedIn account holder.
Here is an example of a “private” LinkedIn profile found by a friend using LinkedIn people search. Any idea who that might be?
Comments 5
Nice – when are you creating the webinar – I have a invitation only vacation company, and I would love to know how to search my target market.
I have had great success with viral marketing, but as you know, that creates a whole host of issues that could be all but stopped, with better search criteria.
So you change your account setting to “Private” to use as an example? I tried it too but it did not work. I changed my setting on “Public Profile” to “NO” do not display. Is that how you got yours to show as “Private”?
Mercedes,
No, I didn’t change my profile. 🙂
I’m glad you are checking on LinkedIn. So many companies practice unethical policies…or just make mistakes in their offerings. So if they don’t “understand” their own “out-of-network” feature, how are they really protecting anyone’s privacy?
Mercedes,
LinkedIn is not exposing anyone’s private profiles. But in this case, it provides us with misleading messages. Come to my webinar (I will schedule it soon) to see examples and explanations of what is going on.