1°) What's your LinkedIn URL?

Your LinkedIn URL is a unique URL that identifies on LinkedIn.

It's generally formatted as follow:

• prefix (generic URL): https://www.linkedin.com/in/

• suffix (your LI URL): /YourLinkedInURL

For example mine is as follow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaud-belinga-social-selling-crm-saas/

Structure of a LinkedIn profile URL

Your LinkedIn URL will be used in many instances. For example, let's say you want to see LinkedIn posts of someone, the URL will be https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaud-belinga-social-selling-crm-saas/shares

2°) Why should you change your LinkedIn URL?

There are many reasons why you'd like to change LinkedIn URL:

• to rank better in LinkedIn search

• to look professional in job applications

• to make obsolete the databases who uses your LinkedIn profile

• to make it more elegant and readable URL

To rank better in LinkedIn search

When someone types some keywords in the LinkedIn search bar or in Sales Navigator, some profiles will appear in priority. The LinkedIn profiles who appear in priority generally use some specific keywords in their headline, description and even name.

The keywords you use on your influence how well you rank in the LinkedIn search bar

These keywords help them be more visible. For example, if you have the keyword Startup in your LinkedIn URL and that this keyword is recurrent everywhere in your LinkedIn profile, you'll be more likely to appear quickly when people type startup on LinkedIn.

People search LinkedIn profiles that way more than you think of, so that's how you can distinguish yourself.

LinkedIn tip: another factor to rank better in LinkedIn search is to increase your LinkedIn Social Selling (SSI) score.

To make obsolete the databases who uses your LinkedIn profile

Databases softwares that provide B2B email addresses like ZoomInfo or Apollo scrape LinkedIn every 6 months or so to get your LinkedIn URL and as much contact informations as possible.

This database software for example is displaying my Personal LinkedIn URL

By changing LinkedIn URL frequently, you can avoid your LinkedIn profile being used for:

• LinkedIn automation outreach by other people (goodbye the annoying LinkedIn invites and automated LinkedIn messages)

• selling your data

To make it more elegant and readable URL

This is the most common reason. Some URLs are just awful, especially when you add some emojis to your LinkedIn name.

By default, LinkedIn will add random numbers associated with your LinkedIn URL? This is what my LinkedIn URL looked liked originally: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaud-belinga-a6490114/

Then, at some point I added some emojis so my name can look like this: Arnaud Belinga 🧊🔨. As a result, my LinkedIn URL became the following: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaud-belinga-%F0%9F%A7%8A%F0%9F%94%A8-6b446142/

Such LinkedIn URLs just look strange or look like bots profiles.

To look more professional for job applications

When you apply for any jobs nowadays, they'll ask for your LinkedIn profile URL. If you can place some nice keywords related to it to stand out in the recruiting process, it's perfect.

When you send your resume, you might want to include a professional LinkedIn URL

To vehicle a specific message with your audience

Some people can use their LinkedIn URL to diffuse a message to their audience, it can be a funny one or a more serious one like the following: https://www.linkedin.com/in/try-breakcold-now-if-you-need-more-sales/

It's a cool way to build a LinkedIn call to action (CTA).

3°) Where to find your LinkedIn URL and customize it?

Step 1: Click on "Me" next to "Notifications" (Your LinkedIn Profile)

On desktop, this button is located on the top right of your screen with your profile picture as the button to click on.

This is the 1st step to change LinkedIn URL

Step 2: Click on "Settings & Privacy" under the Account section

Settings & Privacy is normally between Premium features and Help.

This is the 2nd step to change LinkedIn URL

Step 3: Go to "Visibility"

The Visibility section is displayed with an eye logo and is located under "Sign in & Security"

This is the 3rd step to change LinkedIn URL

Step 4: Click on "Edit your public profile"

It's one of the first two options in the visibility section.

This is the 4th step to change LinkedIn URL

Step 5: Click on the blue pen to customize your LinkedIn URL

When you'll click on the blue pen, you'll only be able to change the end of your LinkedIn URL, that's normal. As explained above, you can't change your generic LinkedIn URL prefix.

This is the 5th step to change LinkedIn URL

Step 6: choose your LinkedIn URL

You can now choose your LinkedIn URL, you can read below 9 questions to master the LinkedIn URL change.

4°) 9 questions about the change of LinkedIn URL

How many times can I change LinkedIn URL

When you start to change LinkedIn URLs, LinkedIn is pretty generous with you. Basically, you can change up to five times within 6 months your public profile URL without problem.

But once you've gone beyond that threshold, you won't be able to change it before another six months. So be really careful when you change LinkedIn URL, think every URL change properly.

How long does it takes for the new LinkedIn URL to appear?

Once you've changed LinkedIn URL, the new one should appear immediately or within a couple of minutes.

If the URL change is not appearing, you may contact LinkedIn support

Can LinkedIn make some unused custom LinkedIn URLs available again upon request?

Some people don't use their LinkedIn profiles at all but they might have created a custom LinkedIn URL you'd like.

Unfortunately, you can't ask LinkedIn to unlock their custom URL. So your only option is to retrieve and ask the person to change their LinkedIn URL or revert it back to normal.

Is the custom LinkedIn URL case sensitive?

Like any URLs on the web in general, custom LinkedIn URLs are not case sensitive which means that if one of your desired custom URLs is taken, you won't be able to use it by just adding a capital letter to a URL.

For a example, let's say this URL is take: in/try-breackold-now

You can't use the following URL: in/Try-Breakcold-Now

Is your old LinkedIn URL still linked to your LinkedIn profile after the change?

There are actually 2 scenarios:

• you change LinkedIn URLs but you don't unlink the old one

• you change LinkedIn URLs but you unlink the old one

LinkedIn tip: it's better to not unlink your old custom URL when you make changes

LinkedIn URL change where you don't unlink the old one

Other LinkedIn users won't be able to claim it for 6 months and during these 6 months the previous URL will still be linked to your LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn URL change where you unlink the old one

If you unlink your previous LinkedIn URL, instead of keeping it for 6 months, other LinkedIn users will be able to claim it after a 7 days period.

So you better not unlink it if you're the kind of person who likes going back-and-forth on decisions.

Do different languages profiles have the same LinkedIn URL?

A LinkedIn URL is tied to all the different languages you can have on your LinkedIn profile so you won't have a different custom LinkedIn URL per language profiles.

Different profile languages make no impact

If you close your LinkedIn account, can you still use your custom LinkedIn URL if you create a new account?

Technically no. Basically, for 180 days from the date of the close the custom public profile URL will remain tied to the closed account so you'll have to wait that period.

So if you want to use the same custom URL in your new profile, the best way is to change LinkedIn URL before shutting down the previous account.

5°) Tips to get more profile views - LinkedIn SEO

Should you use numbers in your LinkedIn URL?

According to LinkedIn guidelines, you can use letters or numbers but you can't use spaces, symbols or special characters in your LinkedIn URL when you change it.

What kind of words should you use?

You should use words that are searched on LinkedIn. To know which words are popular, you can go to LinkedIn and type a keyword with a hashtag.

From there you'll be able to determine if the hashtag (the keyword) has a big following or not so you can choose this word in your LinkedIn URL or not.

LinkedIn tip: choose keywords that are specific (under 2000 followers) to maximize your chances to be visible.

How many words is too much in a LinkedIn URL?

According to LinkedIn guidelines: "Your custom URL must contain 3-100 letters or numbers". From what I've noticed after analyzing more than 50 LinkedIn URL examples, most people keep it under 50 letters.

6°) Bonus: 4 LinkedIn URL change examples from real life LinkedIn profiles

LinkedIn URL change example 1: Justin Welsh

This is Justin Welsh URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinwelsh/

We can noticed that Justin simply got rid of the ID numbers that LinkedIn put on your LinkedIn profile by default.

LinkedIn URL change made by Justin Welsh

LinkedIn URL change example 2: Arnaud Belinga

This my LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaud-belinga-social-selling-crm-saas/

I decided to add some keywords related to what my software is doing after my name. This helps people discover my profile when they type social selling in the LinkedIn search.

LinkedIn URL change made by Arnaud Belinga

LinkedIn URL change example 3: Matt Barker

This is Matt Barker URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjbarker1/

Seems like Matt wanted to get his full name but it was already taken so he simply added a 1 at the end.

LinkedIn URL change made by Matt Barker

LinkedIn URL change example 4: Théo Lion

This is Théo Lion URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/th%C3%A9o-lion-%F0%9F%A6%81-coudac-25108812a/

LinkedIn URL change made by Théo Lion

Like myself in the past, Théo is using an emoji in his LinkedIn URL but the problem is that when you're browsing it looks great but once you copy paste it, you have all these numbers that characterize the emoji.

But if you look at Théo's LinkedIn growth and following, it's definitely not an obstacle!