Never Stop Searching LinkedIn

Due to the just-introduced Commercial Use Limit on Search, many LinkedIn members are hitting the search quota for the month in the first day or two of January 2015 - and have to wait another month to search again.

LinkedIn didn't say how many searches are "too many"; the experience shows it's around sixty searches for one month.

I find limiting the search for unpaid accounts reasonable. It's not new; a number of commercial search systems have similar limitations.

If you are struggling with the new limits on searching and are not ready to go with a paid account yet:

1) There are a number of ways to search that are not counted in the monthly quota. These ways are no substitute for the advanced member search, but can be quite useful.

This includes:

Alumni Search
Field of Study Explorer
Group Member Search
Contact Search (unfortunately, really buggy; importing to contacts is also buggy, has mostly stopped working)
Similar Search
Connections (of a Connection) Search (connect with George to see the results)
Look at "People Also Viewed"

2) Naturally, Googling for LinkedIn profiles ("X-Raying") remains unlimited!

Use this Custom Search Engine to X-Ray LinkedIn:

http://bit.ly/Search-LinkedIn

(I have updated the Search Engine URL to provide up to 1,000 results.)

Here are some example uses:

".Net developer at" (targeting .Net Developers)
Spanish "native or bilingual" (targeting bilingual English-Spanish members)
RN "Greater New York City Area" (targeting Registered Nurses in the NYC Area)
intitle:MBA (members listing MBA as part of the last name)
inurl:uk (members in the UK)

Enjoy!

>> Let's connect on LinkedIn (I can't accept due to LinkedIn limitations but I will invite you back)

>> Follow me on Twitter: @braingain

Comment by Nicholas Meyler on March 11, 2015 at 4:01pm: LinkedIn has not given me my email quota, although I received 6 responses yesterday (all with the headline "we will credit you 1 inmail"). I pointed this out to them, and they generously gave me 1 inmail for my troubles (I mailed them all six to show them what I was talking about).

They blithely ignored that, didn't apologize, and also ignored that I pointed out multiple bugs and defects in the system. For instance, they are incorrectly showing me with a 3% response rate (my response rate is about 25%, over a period longer than a year)... and their 'feedback' score function has been stuck on the same number for the past three months, so obviously broken.

In addition to all the fake profiles and the continued scalping of our money, and violations of the terms of the agreement, this is just another problem, but it clearly shows an intent to defraud and general negligence, I think.