LinkedIn is a popular social media platform used by professionals to network and share content. With over 800 million members, LinkedIn contains a wealth of public data that can be useful for research, marketing, and analytics. However, LinkedIn does place some restrictions on scraping or automatically collecting data from their platform.
What Type of Scraping is Allowed?
LinkedIn's User Agreement prohibits scraping or otherwise copying data from their website via automated means, such as bots or scrapers. However, LinkedIn does allow individuals to manually access and collect limited amounts of public information on user profiles and posts.
You can manually view and compile public profile data like names, titles, companies, locations, skills, etc. Public posts and content shared by members can also be manually accessed. As long as you are manually viewing pages and not using automation, this is permissible based on their terms.
Best Practices for Manual Collection
If you want to manually gather public information from LinkedIn, here are some tips:
Adhering to these practices helps avoid over-accessing LinkedIn's servers while respecting their restrictions.
While automation for scraping LinkedIn data is prohibited, individuals can still manually access and collect certain public information in a responsible way. Following ethical gathering practices ultimately creates a better experience for all LinkedIn members.