How to Share Your LinkedIn Profile in Public View

6 of 8 in Series: The Essentials of Setting Up a LinkedIn Account

You can set your LinkedIn profile for sharing with the entire world, not just your LinkedIn network. The best way to share your information is by setting up your profile for full public viewing.

Setting your profile to full public view makes it easy for anyone looking for you to find you. When you make your profile public, it gets indexed in both the Google and Yahoo! search databases. This makes your online identity accessible and controlled by your access to LinkedIn.

When you’re ready to set your profile to Public, just follow these steps.

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Go to LinkedIn and log in. Click the Profile link in the left navigation menu.

You arrive at the Profile page. Look to the right of the Edit my Profile and View My Profile tabs, for a link that says Edit Public Profile Settings.

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Click the Edit Public Profile Settings link.

This step takes you to the Public Profile settings page.

(Optional) If you want to set a custom URL for your LinkedIn profile, fill in the text box next to the Set Address button.

You can enter anywhere between 5 and 30 numbers or letters, but don’t put in any spaces, symbols, or special characters. When you’ve picked your custom address, click the Set Address button to save your changes.

After you set a custom URL, this text box will be hidden if you come back to this process. You should keep your URL changes to a minimum (preferably, just set it once and leave it), so everyone will know how to get to your profile, especially the search engines. Otherwise, you’ll have different versions of your profile with different URL’s in different places on the Internet.

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Scroll down the main Public Profile section on the page and determine what parts of your LinkedIn profile you want to be available for public viewing.

You have the option of picking which sections of your LinkedIn profile are public. To reveal a section on your public profile, simply select the check box next to that given section, as shown here. Your basic information is already selected for you by default, but you can decide whether to add your education, positions, groups, or any other indicated section. As you check off more sections, a preview of your Profile page on the right side of the page gets updated.

When you’re done, click the Save Changes button to save your selections. You’re taken back to your Public Profile settings page, and you should see a confirmation message at the top of the screen.

Whenever you’re editing your profile, you can scroll down and click the link next to the Public Profile header to see your public profile. On that page, you can click a button to view your full profile. This way, you can see the difference between your public and full profiles.