Mini-contest #2: Hunt for a Public Profile on LinkedIn

[Irina Shamaeva]

The first 3 people who find the person's public URL - or prove that the person is hiding his/her profile from Google - get a pass to the webinar LinkedIn Profiles: an In-Depth Look on June 8th

Thanks to Glen Cathey for giving me an idea and providing the screenshot for this contest! 

[Ruth-Dinaz Sarkari]

Is this it Irina?

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/menachem-ely/0/b34/a04
Profile of Menachem Ely

Sure did not come up in Google with site: command. Used LI title and company field and narrowed down with a D.C. zip code of 20001 with radius of 100 and got three profiles - his was the last one. He is a 3rd degree to me so I see some exp section (not much that he has filled out).

I would still be very interested in understanding the different nuances of searching LI profiles (public/private) They sure keep us on our toes!!
Thanks!
Ruth

[Irina Shamaeva]

Ruth,

That is exactly right! :)

Is there a way to locate this profile by searching on Google? If not, why not?

Irina


Ruth-Dinaz Sarkari said:

Is this it Irina?

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/menachem-ely/0/b34/a04
Profile of Menachem Ely

Sure did not come up in Google with site: command. Used LI title and company filed and narrowed down with a D.C. zip code with radius of 100 and got three profiles. He is a 3rd degree to me so I see some exp section (not much that he has filled out)

I would still be very interested in understanding the different nuances of searching LI profiles (public/private) They sure keep us on our toes!!
Thanks!
Ruth

[Ruth-Dinaz Sarkari]

Not sure this sounds lame but..
(1) I did notice that in the public URL of this profile the name is hyphenated (menachem-ely) but normally URLS for public profiles show the name with slashes - example bob/steele OR .../bobsteele.
(2) The profile is not in LI "public" directory as there is no dir in the URL? LI removed this person from the "public" dir so cannot be found on Google? Is the pub in URL for published as in listed in LI directory but without the dir it means not in public SE directories. Could this be a truly private profile?
You got me!!

Irina Shamaeva said:

Ruth,

That is exactly right! :)

Is there a way to locate this profile by searching on Google? If not, why not?

Irina


Ruth-Dinaz Sarkari said:

Is this it Irina?

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/menachem-ely/0/b34/a04
Profile of Menachem Ely

Sure did not come up in Google with site: command. Used LI title and company filed and narrowed down with a D.C. zip code with radius of 100 and got three profiles. He is a 3rd degree to me so I see some exp section (not much that he has filled out)

I would still be very interested in understanding the different nuances of searching LI profiles (public/private) They sure keep us on our toes!!
Thanks!
Ruth

[Irina Shamaeva]

A profile can't be "truly private" if it has a public URL :)
There's an answer to this.

Ruth-Dinaz Sarkari said:

Not sure this sounds lame but..
(1) I did notice that in the public URL of this profile the name is hyphenated (menachem-ely) but normally URLS for public profiles show the name with slashes - example bob/steele OR .../bobsteele.
(2) The profile is not in LI "public" directory as there is no dir in the URL? LI removed this person from the "public" dir so cannot be found on Google? Is the pub in URL for published as in listed in LI directory but without the dir it means not in public SE directories. Could this be a truly private profile?
You got me!!

Irina Shamaeva said:

Ruth,

That is exactly right! :)

Is there a way to locate this profile by searching on Google? If not, why not?

Irina


Ruth-Dinaz Sarkari said:

Is this it Irina?

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/menachem-ely/0/b34/a04
Profile of Menachem Ely

Sure did not come up in Google with site: command. Used LI title and company filed and narrowed down with a D.C. zip code with radius of 100 and got three profiles. He is a 3rd degree to me so I see some exp section (not much that he has filled out)

I would still be very interested in understanding the different nuances of searching LI profiles (public/private) They sure keep us on our toes!!
Thanks!
Ruth

[Ian R McAllister]

As he has set his settings in his profile to "None off," LinkedIn still provides a public URL but tells search engines through use of a meta tag not to index it along the lines of:

meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow,noarchive"

Therefore, you won't find it in a Google search. The only way to find him is via an LI search.

I'd be interested to know if you have a public URL, and then hide it, for how long Google keeps an index it for/copy of it? I guess - as normal - forever, and the only way to hide it again would be by changing your public url address?

Good one Irina. Always learn more on these exercises!

[Irina Shamaeva]

Ian,

Thanks for your reply.
This person didn't check "None off"!
Guess what he checked.

Ian R McAllister said:

As he has set his settings in his profile to "None off," LinkedIn still provides a public URL but tells search engines through use of a meta tag along the lines of not to index it. Therefore, you won't find it in a Google search. The only way to find him is via an LI search.

I'd be interested to know if you have a public URL, and then hide it, for how long Google keeps an index it for/copy of it? I guess - as normal - forever, and the only way to hide it again would be by changing your public url address?

Good one Irina. Always learn more on these exercises!

[Ian R McAllister]

In which case, he changed his contact settings - click to Introductions only

Irina Shamaeva said:

Ian,

Thanks for your reply.
This person didn't check "None off"!
Guess what he checked.

Ian R McAllister said:

As he has set his settings in his profile to "None off," LinkedIn still provides a public URL but tells search engines through use of a meta tag along the lines of not to index it. Therefore, you won't find it in a Google search. The only way to find him is via an LI search.

I'd be interested to know if you have a public URL, and then hide it, for how long Google keeps an index it for/copy of it? I guess - as normal - forever, and the only way to hide it again would be by changing your public url address?

Good one Irina. Always learn more on these exercises!

[Christine McKenzie]

Congratulations Ruth - good work!

Irina,
I have a quick question. I ran the same search as Ruth, however I am not connected (1, 2 or 3) to Menachem. Therefore, my results show: Laura Odell, David Chase and what I believe to be the Private Profile of Menachem. Since the flip command does not work from google (site:linkedin.com), is there actually a way that could I go about finding more information on this profile?

Thanks,
Chrissy

[Irina Shamaeva]

OK folks, thanks for having the fun! I now have 3 people who provided connect answers so the contest is "officially" closed.

However, here's a bonus question: create a search string on Google to locate the profile without using the person's name. One more webinar pass for that!

Cheers,
Irina

[Irina Shamaeva]

Great question! Let's see if anybody provides an answer.

Christine McKenzie said:

Congratulations Ruth - good work!

Irina,
I have a quick question. I ran the same search as Ruth, however I am not connected (1, 2 or 3) to Menachem. Therefore, my results show: Laura Odell, David Chase and what I believe to be the Private Profile of Menachem. Since the flip command does not work from google (site:linkedin.com), is there actually a way that could I go about finding more information on this profile?

Thanks,
Chrissy

[Cindy]

I had no luck. Would you mind walking me through this process? Many thanks, Cindy

[Sandra L. Padbury]

Laura Odell
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraodell

Sandra Padbury