LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 850 million members worldwide as of 2023. On LinkedIn, members can connect with other professionals in their industry or location to build their professional network. One question that often comes up is whether LinkedIn enforces any limits on how many connections a member can make in a given period of time.
What is LinkedIn’s policy on connection limits?
According to LinkedIn’s published policies, they do not enforce hard connection limits or quotas. There is no set maximum number of connections members are allowed to have, nor is there a weekly or daily cap on how many new connections you can send or accept.
However, LinkedIn does have some safeguards in place to prevent spammy connection behavior. If you send a large number of connection invitations in a short period of time, especially to people you have no existing relationship with, LinkedIn may temporarily limit your ability to send further invitations. This limit is not permanent and will lift after a “cool down” period. The exact number of connections that will trigger a limit is not publicly known.
Why does LinkedIn limit connection activity?
LinkedIn employs these soft limits on connection activity to maintain the quality of interactions on their platform. They want to prevent users from spamming others with connection invites or building networks through bulk invites rather than meaningful relationships.
Some of the specific concerns LinkedIn tries to prevent with connection limits include:
- Spamming users with unwanted invitations
- “Connection farming” – aggressively connecting to build a large network
- Connecting with people you have no existing relationship with
- Automated bots sending large volumes of invites
By throttling the speed of connections, LinkedIn hopes to keep relationship-building organic and meaningful. Their guidance is to only connect with professionals you already know and want to strengthen ties with.
How many connections can you send in a week?
Because LinkedIn does not publish its exact rate limits, it’s impossible to say definitively how many connections you can send in a given week before hitting a cap. The number likely varies based on your history of usage as well.
Some sources indicate that you may be limited after sending invites to around 100 profiles in a day or 500 in a week, but those numbers are unconfirmed. The limit seems to be based more on the pattern and quality of invites rather than a hard number.
To avoid any limits, it’s wise to keep your weekly connection volume to a reasonable level for normal professional networking – no more than 50-100 new invites per week as a general guideline.
What happens when you exceed the limits?
If you do send a surge of invites over LinkedIn’s undisclosed limits, here is what typically happens:
- You will be temporarily blocked from sending further invitations
- A message will indicate you have hit a limit and should slow down connection activity
- The block may last 24-48 hours before being lifted
- Invitations will deliver normally when the limit lifts
- You will be able to continue using LinkedIn during the limit period
This limit applies specifically to sending connection invitations. You can still receive and accept invites from others and use LinkedIn as normal. Any pending invitations will still be delivered after the limit is lifted.
How to avoid hitting LinkedIn’s connection limits
To make sure your LinkedIn networking does not get throttled by overactive connection activity, follow these best practices:
- Only connect with people you know and want to strengthen professional ties with
- Personalize each invitation with a message, don’t use bulk templates
- Spread out invites over days/weeks rather than sending many at once
- Send no more than 30-50 invites per day as a general guide
- Only connect with those likely to remember you or know your name
- Avoid “connection farming” by collecting large numbers of connections
As long as you follow common sense etiquette and build relationships organically, you are unlikely to encounter any limits from LinkedIn on your networking.
Tips for managing a large LinkedIn network
If you do end up developing a very large LinkedIn network over 500+ connections, here are some tips for maintaining those relationships:
- Organize connections using LinkedIn Groups and Lists to segment your network
- Personalize invitation messages to remind people who you are
- Send regular messages and updates to stay top of mind
- Leverage search tools to find connections by industry, location, employer etc.
- Use LinkedIn tags to indicate relationships, colleagues, close contacts etc.
- Limit invites only to those you want close, active relationships with
The more proactive you are about curating, organizing and interacting with your network, the more value you can get out of large connection list on LinkedIn.
Conclusion
In summary, while LinkedIn does not publish formal connection limits, sending too many invites too fast can result in throttled activity. The best practices are to only connect with professionals you have an existing relationship with and avoid mass invite campaigns. With common sense networking etiquette, you should never run into issues with connection caps. Focus on quality over quantity in building your LinkedIn network.
