When you create a LinkedIn profile, you’re automatically assigned a unique URL that contains your name. For example, your profile URL may be www.linkedin.com/in/johnsmith.
This URL is important for your personal branding and SEO, so you’ll probably want to customize it at some point, rather than use the default URL LinkedIn gives you. But how long does it take for your LinkedIn URL to change after you customize it?
How LinkedIn Profile URLs Work
When you first create your LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn automatically assigns you a URL using this format:
www.linkedin.com/in/firstname-lastname
For example, if your name is John Smith, your default profile URL would be www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith.
This URL is generated based on the first and last name you used when creating your account.
LinkedIn creates these default URLs to ensure every member has a unique page they can share. Multiple people can’t have the url www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith, for example.
After you’ve had a LinkedIn profile for a while, you have the option to customize your profile URL:
1. Go to your profile page
2. Click “Edit public profile & URL”
3. Edit the URL field and choose the customized URL you want
For example, you could change your URL from www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith to www.linkedin.com/in/johnsmith or www.linkedin.com/in/jsmith.
This allows you to create a shorter, more professional URL that’s easy to share.
However, there’s a delay between when you customize your URL and when the new URL goes live. So how long does it actually take to change your LinkedIn URL?
How Long Does the LinkedIn URL Change Take?
Unfortunately, LinkedIn does not provide an exact timeframe for when your new customized URL will be live.
Based on user reports, it seems to take **between 24-72 hours** for a new LinkedIn URL to update after you change it in your settings.
Some users have reported the change taking effect in less than 24 hours. Others have had to wait up to 3 days for the new URL to be live across LinkedIn.
Here’s a little more about the timeline you can expect:
* Within seconds, the new URL will be live on your profile page itself. However, the old URL may still work to access your profile at this point.
* Within a few hours, the new URL often starts working from Google search and externally. However, the old URL may also still be active.
* It typically takes **24-72 hours** for the new URL to entirely replace the old URL everywhere on LinkedIn and in search engine results.
* In some rare cases, it can take up to 5 days for the URL change to fully propagate through LinkedIn’s systems.
So in summary, be patient! It takes up to 3 days for LinkedIn to fully switch over to your new customized profile URL in most cases.
Tips for Changing Your LinkedIn URL
To ensure your URL change goes smoothly, keep these tips in mind:
* Double check the customized URL you want is available before changing it. You can only change your URL once every 30 days.
* Don’t create a forwarding link from your old URL to your new one. LinkedIn automatically handles this during the transition.
* You can change your URL back to the original during the transition if needed. Just visit your profile edit page again.
* Wait about a week before evaluating if the URL change had the desired effect. It takes time for the new URL to propagate.
* Don’t delete your old profile URL entirely. You can set your original URL to redirect back to your profile but not delete it.
* Check search engine results pages regularly to see when the new URL takes effect there. This can take time.
* Let contacts and connections know you are changing your profile URL so they update any links.
* Verify any links to your LinkedIn profile are updated with the new URL.
* If the old URL is still showing up in some places after a week, you may need to follow up with LinkedIn support.
Why You May Want to Customize Your LinkedIn URL
Wondering why it’s worth the effort to change your LinkedIn URL? Here are some of the key reasons to customize your profile address:
**1. Shorter, simpler URL.** The default URL LinkedIn assigns can be long and hard to remember. A shorter, customized URL is much easier to share on a resume or business card.
**2. Professional branding.** A customized URL that includes your name looks more professional than a default URL with a bunch of random numbers and letters.
**3. Improved name recognition.** Having your full name (or a variation of it) in your profile URL makes it easier for people to remember it.
**4. Build authority.** A customized URL that reflects your personal brand or expertise can increase your authority and influence.
**5. Better SEO.** Including strategic keywords in your LinkedIn URL can potentially improve your search rankings for target terms.
**6. Consistent experience.** Keeping the same customized URL makes it easier for people to find your profile.
**7. Stand out.** A customized URL demonstrates you have an established LinkedIn presence and helps you stand out from less optimized profiles.
**8. Take it with you.** Even if you leave your job, you can retain the same URL and maintain your online presence.
So in summary, changing your LinkedIn URL to something short, catchy and professional is a great way to level up your personal branding. It just requires a bit of patience for the new address to take effect across LinkedIn’s platform.
Alternatives to Change LinkedIn URL
If you don’t want to change your LinkedIn profile URL, what are some other options? Here are a few alternatives:
* **Use your own domain.** You can link your LinkedIn profile to a custom domain name you own. This allows you to have a much shorter, professional URL like yourname.com. However, there are costs and technical setup required.
* **Use a URL shortener.** You can use a tool like Bitly to create a shorter redirect link to your default LinkedIn URL. This makes it easier to share your long profile link. But it doesn’t change the actual URL.
* **Create a vanity URL.** Some social networks allow you to pay a small fee to get a custom vanity username. LinkedIn doesn’t directly offer this, but you can include your name in your profile headline.
* **Update profile name.** Adding your full name or a consistent version of your name when you first create your LinkedIn account can help generate a better default URL.
* **Use link in bio.** Share your LinkedIn URL in the bio section of other social platforms instead of sharing the full link each time. Many social sites allow URLS in bios now.
* **Use anonymous viewing.** If you want to obscure your LinkedIn activity, there are some tools that allow you to view LinkedIn anonymously. This keeps your profile private.
So in summary, changing your LinkedIn URL is the best way to fully customize and control what the link to your profile is. But if that’s not an option, there are some reasonable workarounds.
Potential Issues When Changing LinkedIn URL
Although it’s fairly straightforward to change your LinkedIn URL, there are some potential downsides and risks to be aware of:
**Broken links:** Any existing links to your old profile URL will break and start leading to 404 errors once you change the URL. This can negatively impact your search engine visibility until those links are updated or redirected.
**Loss of authority:** If you had built up authority and engagement with your old URL, that authority won’t automatically transfer to your new URL. Your search ranking could temporarily drop.
**Negative SEO impact:** Rapid URL changes can sometimes be perceived as spammy by search engines. It’s best to change your URL no more than once per year as a precaution.
**Loss of profile views:** Profiles that people have already visited don’t count as new profile views if you change your URL. So you may notice a drop in views.
**Transition delays:** As mentioned above, it takes time for your new URL to fully work across LinkedIn. In the interim, it can be confusing if both old and new URLs still work.
**Business accounts:** If you use LinkedIn’s business pages, those URLs are managed separately and won’t automatically update when you change your personal profile URL.
**Contact confusion:** Notify your network of any URL changes to minimize the risk of lost connections or broken contact links.
So in general, the URL change process is smooth and takes care of redirects automatically. But be mindful that changes to your profile visibility and authority can take time to improve after a URL transition. Check in with your network to ensure everyone updates links to your profile.
Does LinkedIn Redirect Old URLs?
Yes, one of the best things about changing your LinkedIn URL is that LinkedIn automatically sets up a redirect from your old URL to the new one.
When you customize your profile URL, LinkedIn takes the following steps behind the scenes to redirect your old URL:
– Your new customized URL becomes the primary URL for your profile.
– However, the old URL remains active and redirects to your new URL.
– Over time, LinkedIn phases out the old URL after the new one has fully propagated.
– But the redirect remains in place indefinitely just in case.
So you don’t have to worry about manually forwarding your old URL somewhere. LinkedIn handles the redirect process automatically.
This means:
– People who try to visit your old profile URL will still reach your profile.
– Any old links or bookmarks to your previous URL won’t break.
– Search engines will transfer your authority and rankings to the new URL.
– The transition is seamless for your network and connections.
The redirect stays in place until LinkedIn fully retires the old URL, which can take several months. But even after that, the redirect may still work years later.
So in summary, LinkedIn reliably handles redirecting your old custom URL to the new one. You don’t have to manage the redirect or worry about lost visitors.
Should You Delete or Redirect Old LinkedIn URLs?
Since LinkedIn automatically redirects your old profile URL when you change it, should you even bother redirecting or deleting your old URL yourself?
In most cases, there is no need to do any manual redirects or deletions. LinkedIn has the redirect covered.
However, here are a couple cases where you may want to take action on the old URL:
**Analytics tracking:** If you want to maintain performance analytics tracking across the URL change, you can set up a redirect using Google Analytics or your preferred platform.
**Speed up propagation:** You can set up a temporary redirect on a site you control to help accelerate the switchover to the new URL.
**Brand protection:** If your old URL contains your name, you may want to purchase it and redirect it to protect your brand.
**Remove old content:** If your old LinkedIn profile had content you want to hide, you could delete the URL or redirect it to an unrelated page.
**Shorten transition:** Redirecting from your own domain can force the new URL to propagate faster, minimizing transition time.
**Vanity domain:** You can redirect your old URL to a paid vanity domain to obscure your LinkedIn profile URL completely.
Other than cases like those above, letting LinkedIn handle the redirect is typically best. Don’t delete your old URL entirely, as this can negatively affect your search visibility. Lean on LinkedIn’s systems to seamlessly transition URLs.
Can You Reclaim a Custom LinkedIn URL?
If you customize your LinkedIn profile URL, but later want to change it back to the original URL LinkedIn assigned you, is that possible?
Unfortunately, there is no way to automatically reclaim your previous custom URL if you change your mind after customizing it.
However, you can follow this process to essentially reset your profile URL back to the original:
1. Change your current customized URL back to the long, default-style URL LinkedIn generated initially.
2. Delete your profile entirely.
3. Recreate your LinkedIn profile using your original name.
4. LinkedIn will regenerate your initial system-generated profile URL.
This is obviously very disruptive, which is why it’s so important to choose your custom URL wisely the first time.
You only get one chance to change your URL manually unless you go through the deletion process above.
Some other options to essentially reclaim your old URL include:
– Creating a new LinkedIn profile with a different email address.
– Using your old URL on other social networks or your website instead.
– Purchasing the custom URL you want and redirecting it.
– Petitioning LinkedIn support, but they’ll likely only make exceptions in extreme cases.
So in summary, once you customize your LinkedIn profile URL, there is no built-in way to automatically revert back to a previous URL. Choose wisely the first time, or be prepared for a disruptive profile reset!
Conclusion
Changing your LinkedIn profile URL is a great way to establish a professional brand and stand out from the crowd.
However, it takes some patience for your new custom URL to fully take effect across LinkedIn’s platform. Expect the transition to take anywhere from 24-72 hours in most cases.
LinkedIn will reliably redirect your old URL to the new one automatically. So you don’t have to stress about setting up your own redirect for visitors or search engines.
Just be mindful that any URL change can disrupt analytics and temporary impact search visibility and profile views until the new URL is established.
With care taken to minimize disruption, a custom LinkedIn profile URL can greatly enhance your personal brand and online presence!
