How to Correctly X-Ray LinkedIn for Headlines

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It is quite unexpected – and 99.99% of LinkedIn members do not realize that – but in LinkedIn people search, Headlines are not taken into account! (Easy to check). The Headline is the main intro on your profile that you want the world to see but you cannot be found by it. OOPS, LinkedIn. The moral of the story is that you might want to check that your Headline wording is repeated in your Summary so that others will find you as you expect.

Google, of course, does not discriminate between parts of profile pages, and you can search for anything, Headlines included.

Better yet, Google Custom Search Engines (CSEs) provide us with a unique way to search specifically in Headlines! That compensates for LinkedIn’s neglect of its own design. Thanks to my friend and Master Sourcer Pierre-André Fortin for pointing it out. Somehow I’ve been missing it.

While there has been a negative shift in the relationship between Googlebot and CSEs, one (the only one as far as I can tell) way to narrow down to a field that currently works, Headline, is described below. (Note that searches in this post will only find profiles indexed more than six months ago due to the relationship going wrong around that time. CSEs “think” that current profiles do not even have a Person object. It is such a loss! I hope to see it fixed.)

The syntax for the Headline search is not pretty. But you will clearly see which part you need to copy (the operator) and which you can vary (the arguments). The Asterisk * means AND. This search –

more:p:metatags-og_title:javascript*python

finds profiles of members who have both words javascript and python in their Headlines (but obviously not in the job titles). The results are JavaScript and Python enthusiasts.

(To note, the link above is the best LinkedIn X-Ray CSE, whether you use operators or not.)

We have seen many cases in our sourcing practice where Headlines had uniquely qualifying information and brought up additional results, that couldn’t be found on LinkedIn.

Please join me at our class

Overcoming LinkedIn’s Limitations, Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

to get fully updated on search algorithms, workarounds, less-known functionality, and X-Raying of LinkedIn. As we all know, LinkedIn changes are vast, restricting, undocumented, and unannounced. Spend interesting and productive 90 minutes to get up-to-date, choose the right sourcing tracks, and feel confident. Slides and video are included, as well as 30 days of support from us. Note that seating is limited. Those who can’t attend at the scheduled time will get all the materials and support if they sign up.

 

 

 

 

 

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