(For those not familiar with the terminology, X-ray means using the operator site: on Google or on Bing/Yahoo.)
Search for profiles on LinkedIn by using X-ray has been one of the favorite sourcing techniques. The reason why this has been possible is that LinkedIn allowed its members to have “public profiles” with quite a bit of info, visible to search engines.
You know why I think X-Raying LinkedIn may be a technique that is not going to survive? Well, just do a search like this and click on a few results:
This is how some public profiles now look.
My profile still shows quite a bit of info; perhaps, not for too long.
We have never seen that little information before. Of course, these people will no longer be found by search engines as soon as their new profiles are indexed.
This means that LinkedIn is pulling information into the deep web. (And that is just days after exposing the newly added “skills” on the profiles on the surface web.) If you search LinkedIn profiles, I strongly suggest expanding your network so that you can see more profiles at least for a while longer.
Any other thoughts or observations?