By Surendar Kumar ·

How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Show Up on Google (When People Search Your Name)

Do one thing for me before you read this. Open an incognito window, go to Google and type your full name.

What came up? Your LinkedIn profile? Someone else with the same name? Nothing useful at all?

This matters more than people think. A client hears your name, a recruiter gets your CV, someone sees you in a WhatsApp group. The first thing they do is Google you. Right? And for most professionals, LinkedIn is the easiest page to get ranking for your name, because you don't have to build anything. You just have to set it up properly.

I've gone through LinkedIn's own help pages for every setting below, so you're not relying on guesswork. Let's fix it.

How Google actually finds your LinkedIn profile

Here's the part most people never hear. According to LinkedIn's help page on name searches, when you create a profile, a public version of it is published to LinkedIn's member directory. Search engines like Google check that directory from time to time and index what they find.

That public version is a streamlined copy of your profile for people who aren't signed in, and you control what goes into it. If a section is switched off there, Google can't show it, however good your profile looks when you're logged in.

Step 1: Turn on your public profile visibility

This is the big one. Go to Me > View Profile, then click the edit icon next to Public profile & URL on the right side. LinkedIn walks through this in Control your public LinkedIn profile.

On that page:

  • Make sure Your profile's public visibility is switched On.
  • Go through each section below it (headline, About, experience and so on) and switch on everything you're happy for strangers to see.

LinkedIn also lists a few conditions for being indexed, and they're easy to miss:

  • You must display your full last name. If your profile shows only an initial, you don't get a public profile.
  • Have at least one connection.
  • Add more sections instead of leaving a bare profile.
  • Edit your profile regularly so it stays current.

One honest warning from the same help page: after you change these settings, it can take several weeks or even months for Google to pick it up. LinkedIn doesn't control when search engines refresh. So do this today and stop checking every morning.

Step 2: Claim a clean custom URL (and then leave it alone)

By default LinkedIn gives you a URL with random numbers at the end. Change it to your name. You'll find the option on the same Public profile & URL page under Edit your custom URL.

The rules from LinkedIn's custom URL help page are worth knowing:

  • It can be 3 to 100 characters, with no spaces, symbols, special characters, or the word "LinkedIn".
  • It's first come, first served. If your exact name is taken, add a middle initial, your profession or your city.
  • It's not case-sensitive, so capital letters don't matter.
  • You can change it up to five times in six months.

Now the practical tip nobody tells you. If you change your custom URL, people who visit the old one may see a "Profile Not Found" page. So every place you've ever pasted your old LinkedIn link, like your website, email signature, CV and YouTube channel, can quietly break. Pick a URL once, keep it, and after any change go and update your links everywhere.

Step 3: Write your headline and About for real searches

Your headline goes everywhere your name goes on LinkedIn, and it's part of your public profile. Don't waste it on "Looking for opportunities" or just your job title at one company.

A simple formula that works: what you do + who you do it for + one proof point. For example (made up): "Digital Marketing Consultant for Restaurants | Meta & Google Ads | Karachi".

For About, write the first two lines like they're the only ones anyone will read, because most people won't click "see more". Say who you are, what you help with and where. Use the words people actually search, but write like a human.

Step 4: Use the Featured section to send people somewhere

Featured is the shop window near the top of your profile. LinkedIn's help page on Featured says you can show:

  • LinkedIn posts you've created or re-shared
  • Articles you've published on LinkedIn
  • Links to external websites, like your personal blog or portfolio
  • Media you upload, like images, documents, presentations and videos

To add it, go to your profile, click Add profile section > Recommended > Add Featured. One catch: a post or article has to be published on LinkedIn before you can feature it.

My tip: put a link to your own website or best blog post in the first Featured slot. That turns profile visitors into website visitors, which is the whole point.

Step 5: Link your LinkedIn and your website both ways

Most people stop halfway here. They link LinkedIn to their website but not back, or the other way around.

On LinkedIn: you can add up to three website links in your Contact info section, and choose a website type for each one (LinkedIn help: add a website). There's also a custom button, like "Visit my website" or "View my blog", but LinkedIn says it's only available to a select group of Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Lite subscribers (custom button help).

On your website:

  • Link to your LinkedIn profile from your home page and your About page, using your real name near the link.
  • Add a LinkedIn profile badge. LinkedIn offers a "View profile" badge you can paste on your website or blog. Open your public profile settings and look for Create a public profile badge (Promoting your public profile).
  • Add structured data on your About page that lists your LinkedIn URL under sameAs. Google's ProfilePage documentation describes sameAs as the URL of your other external profiles or home pages.

When your site says "this is my LinkedIn" and your LinkedIn says "this is my site", both pages back each other up. I cover the website side in more detail in how to rank for your own name on Google.

Step 6: Publish posts and articles Google can see

Articles are underrated here. They're long-form, they carry your name, and you can tune them for search.

  • Visibility: LinkedIn says your articles show both on and off LinkedIn only if your public profile is on and the Articles & Activity section is switched to Show (article visibility help). Note that this setting has to be changed on desktop.
  • SEO title and description: when you publish an article, you can set an SEO title (it gets cut off after 60 characters) and an SEO description, where LinkedIn suggests 140 to 160 characters (LinkedIn SEO settings for articles).

For regular posts, set the audience to Anyone if you want them to reach people outside your network.

My approach: publish the full piece on your own blog first, then post a shorter version on LinkedIn with a link back. You get the reach of LinkedIn and the traffic lands on a site you own.

Step 7: Check your result like Google sees it

Don't judge from your own logged-in browser. Use incognito and try:

  • Your full name on its own
  • Your name plus your city or profession
  • site:linkedin.com/in "your name", which uses Google's site: search operator to show LinkedIn profile pages only

If Google is showing old or wrong information, LinkedIn says you'll need to contact the search engine directly, since LinkedIn can't change Google's results.

A few extra tips people love

  • Same photo, same name spelling everywhere. If you're "Ali Raza" on LinkedIn and "Ali R." on your website, you're splitting your own name.
  • Add a second-language profile. LinkedIn lets you create profiles in other languages, and they use the same URL with a language code added at the end. Handy if your audience searches in more than one language.
  • Turn it into a routine. If you're a freelancer, settings are only half the job. My 30-day LinkedIn personal branding plan for freelancers covers posting, networking and getting clients, day by day.
  • Look at real examples. Have a look at my LinkedIn profile to see how a headline, Featured section and website link fit together.

Reviews work the same way for businesses, by the way. When someone Googles your business name, reviews are the first thing they judge. I broke that down in how to reply to Google reviews with ChatGPT.

FAQ

Why isn't my LinkedIn profile showing up on Google?

Usually one of these: your public profile visibility is off, you're not showing your full last name, you have no connections, or you changed something recently and Google hasn't caught up. LinkedIn says updates can take several weeks or months to appear.

How long does it take for LinkedIn changes to show on Google?

There's no fixed timeline. LinkedIn says several weeks or even months, because search engines decide when to refresh.

Does LinkedIn Premium help my profile rank on Google?

LinkedIn doesn't say it does. Public profile visibility and custom URLs are available to everyone. Premium adds extras like the custom button for some subscribers, which helps send visitors to your site but isn't a ranking switch.

Can I stop my LinkedIn profile from showing on Google?

Yes. Turn Your profile's public visibility off in your public profile settings, or hide only the sections you don't want shown.

Keep reading

Want more like this?

I'm launching a digital marketing course soon, and personal branding is a big part of it. Follow me on LinkedIn and you'll hear about it first.

Surendar Kumar is a digital marketing consultant and founder. He started PixelTrackMedia (acquired), is building Reviewtor for online reputation management, and runs All AI Directory and TalkToKrishna. He talks about AI, digital marketing and entrepreneurship.

Find me on LinkedIn · YouTube · X · Instagram · Pinterest