Can I see who’s LinkedIn profiles I’ve viewed?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 800 million members worldwide. As a LinkedIn user, you can view other members’ profiles to learn more about their background, skills, and professional experiences. A common question that arises is whether you can see a list of all the LinkedIn profiles you have viewed previously.

The Short Answer

No, LinkedIn does not provide users with a list of all the profiles they have viewed in the past. LinkedIn does not keep track of or store a history of all the profiles users view. So there is no way for users to see a complete list of every LinkedIn profile they have ever viewed.

Looking at Individual Profiles

While you can’t see a full history of every profile you’ve looked at, you can see limited information about individual profiles you’ve viewed recently. On a person’s profile page, there may be a message indicating the last time you viewed their profile. For example, it may say “Viewed 2 days ago” if you had previously viewed that profile 2 days prior.

LinkedIn will only show this last viewed information for profiles you’ve looked at in the past 90 days. After 90 days, LinkedIn removes any indication that you previously viewed that particular profile.

So while this feature allows you to see which individual profiles you have viewed in the past 90 days, it does not provide a complete history or list of all profile views.

Why Doesn’t LinkedIn Track Profile Views?

LinkedIn intentionally does not keep a complete history of all profile views by users. There are a few reasons why:

• Privacy – Tracking every single profile viewed could raise privacy concerns for some users.
• Data limits – Storing an endless history of every user’s profile views would take up massive amounts of data storage.
• Usefulness – Most users do not need or want a record of every single profile they have ever viewed.
• Discourage misuse – Keeping a detailed history could encourage misuse like stalking or harassment.

In summary, for both practical and ethical reasons, LinkedIn has decided not to store a complete record of all user profile viewing activity.

What Profile Viewing Activity Does LinkedIn Track?

Instead of keeping a forever history of every profile you look at, LinkedIn does track and display some limited profile viewing information, including:

• Who’s Viewed Your Profile – You can see the names and titles of the latest 50 LinkedIn members who have viewed your profile.
• Recent Profile Views – As mentioned earlier, you can see which individual profiles you have viewed in the past 90 days.
• Search Appearances – When you show up in someone’s search results, that counts as a “search appearance.” You can see data on search appearances within the past 90 days.

So LinkedIn does give users some visibility into recent profile viewing activity, just not an indefinite history of every single profile ever viewed.

Third-Party LinkedIn Viewing Tracking Tools

While LinkedIn itself does not provide a full history of profile views, some third-party services claim to unofficially track your LinkedIn viewing history. These tools work by linking to your LinkedIn account and capturing data on your profile viewing behavior over time.

Some examples of third-party LinkedIn viewing trackers include:

• LinkedIn Xray Search
• inSpyder
• Simple Profile Tracker for LinkedIn
• Profile Tracker for Salesforce

However, it is important to understand the limitations of these tools:

• They only capture viewing data from the point when you link the tool to your LinkedIn account going forward. They do not have historical data from before they were installed.
• LinkedIn does not authorize or endorse these third-party extensions. They access data by “scraping” it from your account, which violates LinkedIn’s User Agreement.
• Use of these tools to excessively track other users could get your LinkedIn account restricted or banned.

Ethical Considerations

Before utilizing a third-party LinkedIn tracking tool, it is wise to consider the ethics of tracking the profiles others are viewing without their consent. Just because a tool makes something possible does not necessarily make it advisable. Tracking the personal viewing behaviors of coworkers, clients, peers, etc. without permission is widely considered unethical behavior.

How to See Your Own LinkedIn Profile Views

While you cannot access a complete history of every LinkedIn profile you’ve ever viewed, you can easily see data on your own profile views:

1. Go to your LinkedIn profile page.
2. Scroll down and look on the right rail for the “See all profile views” section.
3. This will show you the names, titles, and companies of the last 50 people who viewed your profile.

You can also click on “Who’s viewed your profile” under the Me icon at the top of LinkedIn. This will show you more detailed analytics on profile views in the past 90 days, including:

• Total profile views
• How you rank among your industry peers
• A graph of daily/weekly/monthly profile views
• Top companies and titles of profile viewers
• Locations of people viewing your profile

Monitoring your own profile views can be useful for gauging your networking and career search efforts. High view counts and views from relevant companies can indicate good engagement with your profile and brand.

Increasing Your LinkedIn Profile Views

Here are some tips to get more profile views and maximize the impact of your LinkedIn presence:

• Completely fill out your profile with details about your background, skills, and achievements. Incomplete profiles get fewer views.
• Include media like photos, videos, presentations, and portfolios to add visual interest.
• Follow companies you are interested in to get on their radar.
• Join relevant LinkedIn groups and participate in thoughtful discussions.
• Engage with your connections by liking and commenting on their posts.
• Post interesting updates, articles, and content that your network will want to view and share.
• Optimize profile SEO with relevant keywords so you appear in search results.
• Consider promoting your profile via LinkedIn advertising products.

Conclusion

LinkedIn does not provide users with a complete history of all the profiles they have viewed in the past. This is an intentional design choice to protect privacy. LinkedIn also avoids keeping unlimited records of all profile views to minimize storage needs and misuse risk.

However, LinkedIn does display limited information about individual profiles you have viewed in the past 90 days. You can also see data on your own profile views and access analytics on who has been looking at your profile.

While third-party browser extensions exist that can unofficially track your LinkedIn profile viewing, ethical and legal concerns exist regarding the use of such tools. In most cases, continuously monitoring the profiles other people look at is considered inappropriate without consent.

If you want to increase legitimate profile views, focus on building an attractive and informative LinkedIn presence that provides value. Profile views can be an important metric to evaluate your personal branding and career networking efforts.

Key Takeaways

• LinkedIn does not store a complete history of all profiles viewed by users.
• You can see which individual profiles you’ve viewed in the past 90 days.
• Third-party tools can unofficially track profile views, but ethical issues exist.
• Focus on building an attractive, optimized LinkedIn profile to get more legitimate views.