LinkedIn and SEO -- Is there a relationship?

[glennfriesen]

I've analyzed the link profiles for 12 sites recently.

I noticed that none included a link from LinkedIn, though each company had links on LinkedIn (I suspect this is because LinkedIn redirects outbound links).

Are links on LinkedIn really good for SEO? (IE DO THEY PASS LINK JUICE !!!!!!!????)

SuperStock_1491R-1130365.jpg linkedin.jpg linkedin-243x300.jpg

[glennfriesen]

Ya, I operate under that assumption about 301's, too.

I also can see most every 301 that points to one of my sites on my SEO link tracking tools. However, I can not see links from LinkedIn on any of these. Check OpenSiteExplorer for your site, and see if it lists LinkedIn, and you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure that the LinkedIn links are not treated like a 301.

I am coming to believe that links on LinkedIn pass no link juice. Would you agree? How could we track/observe if my belief is correct or not?

[asimahme]

"The profile link is a dofollowed link, but it appears to be routed through a redirect on LinkedIn servers -- which seems to retain all the link juice from that link (passing none to the final destination url). In other words, the link doesn't count for SEO (right?)."

From my understanding, if it's a 301 redirect than 90% of it's linkjuice would be passed.  However I'm not sure how LinkedIn performs their redirects.

[glennfriesen]

The profile link is a dofollowed link, but it appears to be routed through a redirect on LinkedIn servers -- which seems to retain all the link juice from that link (passing none to the final destination url). In other words, the link doesn't count for SEO (right?).

Totally agree with your analysis, otherwise. LinkedIn is great for reputation management, some SERP domination, and actually networking with real people (which may later turn into juicy links outside of LinkedIn's walls). Thanks, man!

[asimahme]

Well a link from the linkedin Profile is a Followed Link (for now).  However I'm not sure if the followed links from social media profile pages pass much value in the eyes of Google.

You can definitely leverage LinkedIn for better SEO results and reputation management.  It's a B2B networking platform so if your clients are in the consulting industry you could create some kind of workflow where they are active on the LinkedIn Q&A section, LinkedIn Groups and participate in discussions on LinkedIn.  If you provide enough value and are participating on all the appropriate channels on LinkedIn, you can easily establish some kind of relationship with bloggers or other website owners and leverage them for links either through guest posting on their website, or performing an interview article on your website and asking them to link to you, etc.

LinkedIn is a platform where you can establish and build relationships, which can turn into links.

Hope this helps

[glennfriesen]

Using OSE, I analyzed the link profile for the domain I suspect you're referencing and did not observe any dofollow or nofollow links from LinkedIn pointing to that domain being counted.

Perhaps I'm looking at this wrong. Is there any proof you can provide that your domain receives juice from the links you mentioned?

where.gif

[AaronSchinke]

We actually have a followed link and several no-follows from Linkedin?