With over 550 million users and counting, LinkedIn is one of the fastest-growing social channels for business networking. However, despite its increasing popularity, there are still some questions that even experienced users have. Today, I will try to answer 50 of your Frequently Asked Questions in this LinkedIn FAQ compilation.
So, let’s go!
LinkedIn FAQ Part 1: Connections & Followers
The first 50 questions of our LinkedIn FAQ will be all about organic on LinkedIn. In the last 25 questions, we will focus on Paid Advertising.
1. What do 1st, 2nd, and 3rd connections mean?
The grade of your connections simply referes to how close LinkedIn members are to your professional circle:
- First connections are your direct connections. In other words, the people who are part of your network, with which you have exchanged an invitation to connect. And both of you have accepted.
- Second connections are the connections of your connections, or the “friends of your friends”. Aka people that are outside of your network, but you share common connections with.
- Third connections are LinkedIn members that are connected to your second connections. They are further from your current or potential network, but still available to connect with under certain circumstances. For example, when the first and the last name are fully displayed.
2. What is the connection limit on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn has a limit of 30,000 connections – even for Premium accounts. Currently, there isn’t any way to surpass this limit.
3. What happens when you reach 30,000+ connections?
When you reach the 30,000 connection threshold, you can no longer accept invitations to connect. However, everyone who wants to keep in touch with you can Follow you instead of becoming a connection.
4. Why does LinkedIn have a connection limit?
The main reason why LinkedIn has a connection limit is because it values quality rather than quantity.
The limit regulates accounts whose sole purpose is to have a lot of connections. The general idea is that you can’t possibly know or communicate with more than 30,000 people on a professional level. In fact, even this number may sound too much!
So, it makes no sense to have that many connections.
5. Should I include the number of my connections in my profile?
The short answer is: No.
If you do this, you are doing exactly what LinkedIn is trying to avoid. You have probably already noticed that the platform doesn´t show any specific number above 500 connections, just +500.
Well, it is not because they can´t. The reason why is because LinkedIn values quality much more than quantity. So, if they were to show the exact number of connections, people would be competing with numbers the way they do on Facebook and Instagram.
When in fact, this number doesn´t have any value if you aren´t interacting and building relationships with your professional network.
Maybe the only exception would be if you have 30,000 connections. But only because this way, you will let people know that you can’t accept their invitations because you have reached the limit.
6. Should you add everyone on LinkedIn?
No! Make sure that you have a valuable reason to add them. For example, you met them in an event, and you want to connect with them.
Or maybe, you saw their profile and consider that you have things in common that you could network about.
You can also check this article for more Do´s and Dont´s when it comes to LinkedIn networking.
7. Why can’t I connect with someone on LinkedIn?
There could be a few possibilities:
- You have exceeded your invitation limit, and you have been restricted by LinkedIn. Fortunately, you can solicit additional invites.
- Too many people selected the option I don’t know you, and you have been restricted as a result.
- The person was outside of your network.
- Or he has blocked you for some reason. Although this is rarely the case if you haven´t been connected to the person in the first place.
8. What does outside your network mean?
When a LinkedIn member is outside of your network, it means that their profile has limited visibility. In other words, they are neither your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd connection, nor you share LinkedIn groups in common.
Connections that are outside of your network will look something like that:
9. What can I do if a LinkedIn member is outside of my network?
There are some things that you can do if a LinkedIn member is outside of your network. For example:
- Join a group they are part of;
- Increase your network with meaningful connections;
- Find and add connections in common (but only of it makes sense, do not add people randomly).
10. Can you tell if someone removes you from LinkedIn?
LinkedIn doesn´t send you notifications if someone removes you from his professional network.
However, if you check their profile, you will see that you are no longer first connections.
11. Are connections and followers the same thing?
Not exactly. Connections are the people who have connected with you, and followers are people that have “subscribed” to your account so they can receive updates from you. So, connections are mutual “agreements” between both parties.
However, following a member or a company doesn´t mean that they are following you back. Also, users can follow you without necessarily being connected to you.
Once you surpass 30K connections, you can no longer accept invitations. So everyone who wants to be a part of your network will have to follow you.
12. How do I know how many followers I have on LinkedIn?
Just go to your profile, and scroll down to the Articles & Activity section. You will find the exact number there:
LinkedIn FAQ: Number of Followers on Individual Profiles
13. How do I see all my connections on LinkedIn?
You can see the number of your connections on LinkedIn by clicking My Network at the top of the homepage.
If you click on Connections, you will see all the people within your professional network.
14. Can you see how many connections someone has on LinkedIn?
If a member has less than 500 connections on LinkedIn, you will see the exact number. However, if the person has more than 500, you will always see +500 on their profile, with no exact numbers.
As we already mentioned, LinkedIn does this to avoid people competing for meaningless numbers.
However, if you are connected with a person, you can see the number of people that are following him. This information can serve you as an approximate estimation for his overal number of connections. Although, we already explained that followers and connections are not the same thing.
For example, if this person is an influencer, he will have much more followers than connections (which are capped at 30,000):
LinkedIn FAQ: Number of followers
15. How can I update my profile without notifying contacts?
LinkedIn allows you to make updates to your profile without notifying your network about the changes.
If you don´t want to share a specific update with your network, just disable the option before saving the change:
LinkedIn FAQ Part 2: Invitations & Blocking
16. Is there a limit on LinkedIn invitations?
Currently, the LinkedIn invite limit is 3,000. If you send a larger number of invitations in a short period of time, you might be restricted by LinkedIn due to spam suspicion.
However, you may request an increase if you have reached your limit. And of course, if LinkedIn considers that your ratio between sent and accepted invitations is good.
If the algorithm finds that you are chaotically sending invitations to people who don´t accept them, it will probably not give you the increase.
17. How many LinkedIn requests can I send in one day?
There isn’t a specific limit on how many LinkedIn invitations you can send in a day. However, the general rule of thumb is to not send requests that are more than 3-5% of your total number of connections.
So, if your total number is 1500, try to keep it between 45 and 75 daily invitations. Additionally, you will be required to enter a Captcha for each invite sent after the first 100 within a 24-hour period.
LinkedIn is very careful about spamming! So, avoid abusing its power.
18. What happens when you withdraw an invitation?
Nothing! Your invitation to connect will simply disappear. On the recipient´s side, he won’t be notified about the withdrawal.
However, if you included a message in your invitation, it can still arrive to the user’s inbox.
19. How do you withdraw an invitation on LinkedIn?
You can easily withdraw an invitation by following these steps:
- First, go to My Network at the top of your homepage.
- Click on Manage
- Then, click on the Sent section
- And click on Withdraw next to the users whose invitation you want to discard.
LinkedIn FAQ: Withdrawing an invitation
If you don´t see the person what you wanted to withdraw the invitation from, it has probably expired. In which case, you can´t do anything about it.
20. Which LinkedIn invitations should I accept?
It depends on you. Pay a visit to their profile before accepting. And, if you find something in common that might be the base of a future professional relationship, why not! Of course, if you already know them, the decision could be even easier.
If not – don’t just add people to boost your numbers. Nobody is going to see them anyway.
21. What happens if I don’t accept an invitation?
Nothing. The person whose invitation wasn’t accepted will not be notified.
However, if he goes to your profile, he will see that you have his invitation on Pending:
22. Do LinkedIn invitations expire?
Yes, invitations send to existing LinkedIn members expire in 6 months. If you invited a person who isn’t a user of the platform yet, the expiration will happen within 2 weeks.
23. Can I re-send an expired invitation?
Yes, you can! Just be careful – you don’t want to risk being marked as spam.
Usually, invitations expire because people didn´t want to connect with you in the first place. In which case, it doesn´t make much sense to try again.
The other common reason is because people haven´t logged into LinkedIn in months. In this case, you can try sending them an invitation again. Although it probably doesn´t make much sense either if they aren´t users of the platform.
24. What happens if too many people mark your invitations as spam?
LinkedIn will be alarmed, and you might receive a usage restriction.
25. What happens when you report a LinkedIn profile?
When you report a profile, the person will not be notified about who reported them, or why. Depending on the severity of the situation, LinkedIn might restrict or warn this profile.
You can report a profile if you think that:
- The person violates Terms of Use;
- Their profile does not represent a real individual;
- They are trying to impersonate someone;
- Or they are using an inappropriate image on their profile.
26. Can you paste links or add attachments to invitations?
No, you can’t use links or attachments in invitations. It is probably on purpose, to reduce spam.
27. What is the text limit for personalized invitations?
You have up to 300 characters to personalize your invitations to connect. They are highly recommended to use, especially if you don´t know the person.
28. Can I send an invitation to connect to anyone?
Yes, you can send invitations to almost anyone, except for a few cases:
- When the person is outside of your network;
- In cases when the user has a limited profile visibility and you can´t find them;
Furthemore, to control the number of invitations they receive, some people will require you to know their e-mail address before connecting.
LinkedIn FAQ Part 3: LinkedIn Tools
29. What is LinkedIn Premium?
LinkedIn Premium is a monthly subscription plan for individual members. It is highly focused on job seekers, and it provides premium career features such as:
- Direct messaging to recruiters;
- Featured Applicant status for job positions;
- Applicant and Salary Insights;
- Unlocking Who´s viewed your profile;
- And LinkedIn Learning courses.
The price is approximately 30 EUR per month, or a little bit less – 25 EUR, if you pay annually.
30. Is LinkedIn Premium worth it for job seekers?
Of course, this is going to be my own opinion, and I am not speaking from everyone´s name. But from my own experience, it might not be such a great return on investment for job seekers. The features could definitely improve for this price.
You can also check my article Is LinkedIn Premium Worth it for Job Seekers? My Honest Feedback for more details.
LinkedIn FAQ: Is LinkedIn Premium worth it?
If you noticed, I highlighted the keyword “for job seekers”. This means that it can still be worth it for other LinkedIn goals. You can find my full opinion in the article that I linked to above.
31. What is LinkedIn Pulse?
LinkedIn Pulse is the company’s platform for publishing original articles written by users. You can find more information by clicking on this link.
32. Can anyone publish articles on LinkedIn Pulse?
Yes. Previously, only selected users could do that, but now this option is available for everyone.
33. What is LinkedIn Learning?
LinkedIn Learning is a platform with educational resources that comes with some of the Premium plans. It offers an extensive variety of video courses in various areas such as Digital Marketing, Design, Technology, Business, Sales, Software Development, and more.
34. Is it worth upgrading to a Premium Plan to get the courses from LinkedIn Learning?
Totally! In fact, I think that it is the only Premium feature that’s worth the high price of the paid plans.
35. Do I get a certification when I complete a course?
Yes, you do, and you can easily add it to your profile in the section of Accomplishments:
36. Are the courses only available in English?
No, they are currently available in English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish.
37. What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator?
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a tool for lead generation designed for sales professionals. It is a paid subscription service that helps you target buyers and key accounts, discover industry insights, and engage with a personalized outreach.
38. What features does LinkedIn Sales Navigator have?
For a price starting from 58.07 EUR per month, you get features like:
- Recommended leads and accounts;
- A feature that lets you save leads for future contact:
- Advanced filters;
- Sales alerts and job updates;
- 20-50 inMail messages per month;
- CRM integrations.
There are many other features, and the ones that you’ll get depend on your LinkedIn Sales Navigator plan. You can check all plans and features here.
LinkedIn FAQ Part 4: Profile & Settings
39. Can I block a LinkedIn member?
Yes, you can block up to 1000 members on LinkedIn.
40. What happens if you block someone on LinkedIn?
When you block a LinkedIn memebr, you will not be able to access each other´s profile. Furthemore, you will no longer be able to message one another.
If you have been connected, this user will no longer be connected to you. Any endorsements and recommendations on your profile will be removed.
41. Is there a limit on search?
If you use your LinkedIn account for sales, marketing, recruitment, or any other reason that requires a lot of searches, there is a monthly commercial limit.
The exact number of searches isn’t really mentioned anywhere. However, when you reach the maximum, you will receive a reminder that you are approaching the limit.
You can either upgrade your plan to Premium, or wait for the next month to be able to do more searches.
42. Can I hide my LinkedIn Activity from everyone?
Yes, you can control these parameters from your profile’s settings.
Just go to Settings & Privacy in the upper right corner of your homepage. Then, scroll down to Profile Viewing Options:
LinkedIn FAQ: Profile viewing options
43. What is an Open Profile?
Premium users can choose to make their profile “open” to the public. This means that everyone can send them an InMail even if they are not Premium users themselves.
44. What are endorsements?
It is an easy way to get verified by people you’ve worked with that you are qualified in a skill. Connections that endorse you for a skill confirm publicly that you actually have it.
45. Can anyone endorse me?
Only first-level connections can endorse you. Second-level or connections that are outside of your network can’t.
Sometimes, people who are trying to endorse you will be asked how they know you. For example, whether you have worked at the same company, graduated from the same school, etc.
46. Who should endorse me?
As we mentioned, you can be endorsed by anyone who is connected to you. However, it is not very meaningful if you have never worked/studied/partnered with them.
47. How many skills should I list?
Try to keep your list short, but sweet – more than 20 skills usually mean that you are not specialized in anything. On LinkedIn, you should always focus on quality before quantity!
48. Why can’t I see who viewed my profile?
If a member has chosen to view your profile in private mode, you won’t be able to see their information – even if you have a Premium account.
49. How can you make your profile appear more often in search results?
To improve your future search appearances, make sure to update your profile with the most recent information. Do not forget to provide a detailed description of your job tasks using keywords, and include your job position and company name in the headline.
You can click here for more information on how to optimize your profile for search results.
50. What keywords did my searchers use to find me?
Go to your profile, click on Search Appearances (which appears right below your headline and description), and scroll all the way down to “Keywords your searchers used”:
50. LinkedIn FAQ: Conclusion
If you haven’t registered on LinkedIn yet, or you are not an active user, I definitely recommend you to create a profile immediately, and start building your network with valuable connections. And no, I am not sponsored by LinkedIn to say that :).
It is one of the most important steps you can take to increase your professional digital presence, encounter better job opportunities, and meet people with similar interests who can later convert into your colleagues, employers, or friends.
Did my LinkedIn FAQ missed any questions that you would like to get the answer for? Let me know in the comments below, and I would be delighted to make part 2!
