LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million members worldwide. With so many profiles on the platform, LinkedIn’s search function is an invaluable tool for finding and connecting with professionals in your industry or location. However, one frustration many LinkedIn users encounter is getting “search results blurred” after viewing a certain number of profiles in search. If you’ve ever wondered how to unblur LinkedIn search results, this guide will walk you through the top methods to access full information from LinkedIn searches.
What Does it Mean When a LinkedIn Search is Blurred?
When you conduct a search on LinkedIn, your initial results will display profile photos, names, titles, locations, and companies for each person. However, after clicking into a certain number of profiles (usually around 10-15), LinkedIn will blur out the remaining search results. The blur effect covers profile photos, names, companies, titles, and locations – basically all identifying information.
This is LinkedIn’s way of limiting free users from accessing search results. To gain full access to search, LinkedIn requires you to upgrade to a premium account. Blurring search is LinkedIn’s method of enticing users to pay for premium subscriptions in order to gain more value from the platform.
Why Does LinkedIn Limit Search Visibility?
LinkedIn blurred search results for a few key reasons:
- Drive premium subscriptions – Blurring search gives free users a preview of LinkedIn’s capabilities while motivating upgrades to premium for full access.
- Respect user privacy – Obscuring names/photos prevents free users from accessing too much identifiable information without consent.
- Prevent scraping – Blurring search makes it harder for bots to scrape and collect user data.
- Improve relevance – Limiting profile views encourages users to narrow down searches for more relevant results.
While blurring search can be annoying, it aims to balance LinkedIn’s value proposition with privacy and security. However, there are still several effective ways around blurred search results, depending on your needs.
How to Unblur LinkedIn Search Results
1. Upgrade to a Premium Account
The simplest way to gain full access to LinkedIn search results is to upgrade to a premium account. With a premium subscription, you can view all LinkedIn profiles and search results without any blurring or limits. LinkedIn offers three paid tiers:
- Premium Career – $29.99/month
- Premium Business – $49.99/month
- Premium Sales – $64.99/month
Premium Career is LinkedIn’s basic paid plan for individual professionals. It removes search limits, lets you see full profile views, and offers other benefits like messaging and profile highlighting. Premium Business adds more search filters and insights to help manage your brand and hiring. Premium Sales focuses on empowering sales professionals with premium search, expanded network visibility, and sales tools.
Upgrading to any of these paid tiers will immediately give you unblurred access to LinkedIn search. However, depending on your specific needs, one of the following free workaround methods may also do the trick.
2. Re-Search by Opening in Incognito Mode
One simple workaround is to open LinkedIn in an incognito or private browser window and re-do your search. Here’s why this works:
- LinkedIn’s search blur is based on the number of profile views from your account.
- In incognito mode, LinkedIn doesn’t recognize your account activity.
- This essentially resets your previous search views for a fresh start.
To unblur using this method on Google Chrome, click the 3-dot menu > New Incognito Window. Then head to LinkedIn and redo your search. You should now be able to view around 10-15 more profiles before blurring recurs. Other browsers like Firefox and Safari have similar private browsing modes.
3. Change Your Search Terms and Filters
LinkedIn’s search blur occurs after a set number of profile views. An effective workaround is to modify your search terms and filters. Narrowing your keywords and adding filters like location, company, school, etc. will return a new set of search results you haven’t previously viewed.
For example, if your original search for “product managers San Francisco” is blurred, try changing it to “Apple product managers San Francisco” or “Stanford product managers.” This essentially resets your search views back to zero for unblurring.
4. Use Advanced Boolean Search Strings
You can further nuance LinkedIn searches with Boolean operators like AND, OR, NOT. Using specific Boolean searches allows you to find new results despite blurring. Some examples:
- “product manager AND Stanford NOT Facebook”
- “marketing OR social media”
- “CEO AND healthcare NOT biotechnology”
Crafting targeted Boolean searches like these yield fresh results to circumvent previous blurring.
5. Connect with People from Blurred Searches
If you find relevant profiles within your blurred search, you can still connect by sending an invite. Even though details like name and company are obscured, the “Connect” button remains available. By sending invites, you can potentially network with professionals from blurred searches. If they accept your invitation, their full profile will become visible.
When initiating a connection, be sure to customize the invite message with some context about why you want to connect, since the recipient has limited profile details due to blurring.
6. Export LinkedIn Search Results to Excel
LinkedIn has the option to export your search results to an Excel file, whether blurred or not. Here’s how:
- Conduct your desired search on LinkedIn.
- Click “Save search” next to the search bar.
- Name and save your search.
- Go to the “Saved searches” section of LinkedIn.
- Click the 3-dot icon next to your saved search.
- Select “Export to Excel.”
This will download an Excel file containing the full list of profiles matching your search criteria, including all details that may be blurred on the platform. The Excel method allows you to document and access search results for later reference.
7. Install a LinkedIn Search Unblur Chrome Extension
There are Chrome browser extensions that claim to unlock blurred LinkedIn searches. Examples include:
- LinkedIn Unblur
- Clearbit Connect
- RocketReach
These extensions allegedly work by using desktop notifications to bypass LinkedIn search limits. However, it’s important to research legitimacy, read reviews, and evaluate privacy/security before installing any third-party extension.
8. Use Premium Business Analytics to Export Data
LinkedIn Premium Business accounts include Analytics, a dashboard providing insights and data exports about your business page, content, and employees.
Utilizing Premium Business Analytics, you can export search data about employees of a company in Excel or CSV format. This provides detailed results bypassing normal search blurring. However, it only applies to company related searches from Premium Business accounts.
Conclusion
In review, here are top recommendations for how to unblur LinkedIn search results:
- Upgrade to a premium account for unlimited access
- Re-search in an incognito browser window
- Modify filters and keywords to reset views
- Craft targeted Boolean search strings
- Connect with professionals from blurred results
- Export search contacts to Excel
- Try a LinkedIn search unblur Chrome extension (research first)
- Use Premium Business analytics to export company data
While annoying, LinkedIn’s search blurring exists to balance utility with privacy, security, and monetization. With over 810 million users, unfettered search access would create issues. However, using the right methods, you can still uncover valuable insights and connections from LinkedIn search.