Working around LinkedIn’s Commercial Use Limit on Search

Today I saw the above warning while searching for a friend on LinkedIn: “Brian, you’re approaching the commercial use limit on search”. After clicking on learn more (see here), it says reaching the commercial use limit “means your activity on LinkedIn is likely geared towards commercial purposes, like hiring or prospecting.”

Now I’m active on LinkedIn, but not for commercial purposes. I also cannot justify spending $50+ per month on a premium account.

So for those like me, there is a work around to finding people on LinkedIn…using Google! Just make use of the powerful filters available by following the instructions below.

Using Google to work around LinkedIn’s commercial use limit on search:

Add the following to your Google search:

• site:linkedin.com/in
  This returns search results where the site or url matches only “linkedin.com/in”. Have a look yourself – every public profile on LinkedIn contains “linkedin.com/in”.
• intitle:CIMA
  Whatever you enter here will return matches based on the Page Title. The example above will return anyone detailing their CIMA qualification in their title. Tip: if you are searching for multiple words in a title use multiple intitles, e.g. intitle:CIMA intitle:CA.
  
• inurl:ie
  Add the above when you are looking for people based in a certain country. For example, the example above will return anyone in Ireland, “inurl:ca” will return anyone in Canada.
• keywords
  Want to search for people in San Francisco? Add “San Francisco” to the search query. Looking for a specific company, e.g. Datahug? Add “Datahug” to the search query.
• Use inverted commas for a specific searches for any of the above. For example “sales manager” or “director of sales”.

Examples of Google Searching LinkedIn:

1. Here’s a search for people who work in Datahug and based in San Francisco.
2. Here’s a search for people with “Founder” in their title, based in Vancouver.

A few notes on the Commercial Use Limit for Search on LinkedIn:

• There is no mention by LinkedIn on how many searches are actually permitted, but from my experience it seems to be about 50 searches per month. Let me know in the comments if you’ve found something different.
• The Commercial Use Limit resets at midnight PST on the 1st of every month (see here).
• Note that anyone with the Job Seeker plan does not have unlimited searches. I’ve spoke to people who learned this the hard way.

Any more tips on LinkedIn? Let everyone know in the comments below.