How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Rank for Your Name
LinkedIn profiles often rank well for a person's name because LinkedIn is a large, trusted site and each profile is clearly about one person. But a profile only has a chance if search engines are allowed to see it, and many people have settings that quietly limit that.
Fixing it takes about half an hour: turn on public visibility, claim a clean custom URL, fill in the sections search engines can read, and link to the profile from places you control. Then give it time, because LinkedIn itself says it can't control how fast search engines pick up changes.
1. Check that search engines can see your profile at all
LinkedIn has a separate set of public profile settings that controls what people see when they're not signed in, and what search engines can index. According to LinkedIn Help, on desktop you get there like this:
On the mobile app, the same settings are under your profile photo, then Settings, Visibility, and Edit your public profile. Changes save automatically there.
One detail catches people out: LinkedIn's help page on why a profile does or doesn't appear in web searches says your full last name has to be displayed for the profile to be public. If you shortened your last name to an initial for privacy, search engines won't be matching the full name.
- Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
- Click View Profile.
- Click the Edit icon next to Public profile & URL in the right panel.
- Make sure Your profile's public visibility is switched on.
- Go down the list of sections (photo, headline, about, experience and so on) and switch on the ones you want public.
2. Claim a custom URL that matches your name
By default LinkedIn gives you a URL with a string of numbers and letters at the end. Replacing that with your name gives search engines one more clear signal. In the same Public profile & URL panel, click the edit icon next to your URL, type the new ending, and save.
The rules, per LinkedIn's URL help page:
If your exact name is taken, add a middle initial, your profession, or your city. Pick something you'll keep. Changing it often means the links you've shared elsewhere point to an old address.
- It must be 3 to 100 characters, with no spaces, symbols, special characters, or the word "LinkedIn."
- It isn't case-sensitive.
- Custom URLs are first come, first served, and you can only have one at a time.
- You can change it up to five times in six months. After that you wait another six months.
- When you change it, your previous URL stays linked to you for six months unless you unlink it.
3. Fill in the parts a search engine actually reads
A public profile with only a name and a job title is thin. The profile that ranks is one that clearly describes a real person.
LinkedIn's own help page lists having at least one connection, adding more sections, and updating the profile regularly among the things that affect whether a profile shows up in web search. None of that is hard, but a profile that's been untouched since 2017 is working against you.
- Name. Use the name people search for in the main name fields. LinkedIn lets you add an additional name, such as a former or maiden name, but its help page says public profiles don't display that field, so it won't help with Google searches.
- Headline. Describe what you do in plain words, like "Commercial Insurance Broker, Tampa." A job title alone is fine, but a headline with your field and location is more useful to people searching.
- About. Write a few short paragraphs in the first person. What you do, who you help, what you've worked on. Don't stuff it with keywords; it reads badly and doesn't help.
- Experience and education. Fill in real entries with short descriptions, not just titles and dates.
- Photo. A clear, current headshot, and make sure the photo is set to public in your public profile settings.
4. Point links at it from places you control
Search engines find and weigh pages largely through links. Put your LinkedIn URL on your personal website, your email signature, your company bio, speaker pages, and association directories. If you have a broader reputation plan, LinkedIn should be one of the profiles every other profile links to.
Use the custom URL everywhere, not the old one with numbers. Consistent links to one address are more useful than scattered links to several.
5. Publish articles, if you have something to say
LinkedIn articles can be shown off LinkedIn, but only if both Your profile's public visibility and the Articles & Activity section are set to show in your public profile settings. LinkedIn notes on its article visibility page that these settings can only be changed on desktop.
An article carries your name as the author, so a well-written one on a topic in your field can become another result that's about you. Don't publish filler just to have more pages. One thoughtful piece is worth more than ten generic ones.
How long before it shows up
LinkedIn is upfront that it doesn't control this. Its help page says search engines periodically review LinkedIn's member directory and that some can take several weeks to remove old profiles or show new information.
So make the changes, then check again in a few weeks, searching your name in a private browser window. Don't keep changing your URL or toggling visibility in the meantime. That just restarts the clock.
What LinkedIn can and can't do for you
A strong LinkedIn profile is one of the most reliable results a person can add to their name search, and it's especially valuable if you're looking for work, since recruiters check it anyway.
It's still just one result. If something negative ranks for your name, LinkedIn can take one spot above it, not the whole first page. And it doesn't remove anything. Some results, like pages showing your home address or phone number, can be taken out of Google directly; our guide to removing results from Google Search covers those routes.
When outside help makes sense
Everything above you can do yourself, and you should start there. Help is worth considering if a negative result still sits above your profile after a few months of steady work, if you're not sure whether something can be removed rather than buried, or if you'd rather hand off the ongoing work of building several profiles that support each other.
Want this handled for you? See our control your Google search results service.
