Reasons and Ways to Scrape LinkedIn for Information

Who has not heard of LinkedIn yet? It is hard to believe that there still are such people out there. Having a LinkedIn account is a must have if you want to be considered a professional in your field.

This article will tell you about LinkedIn scraping. To start with, scraping has been around since the beginning of the Internet, but its sophistication and scale has dramatically grown since then. It is possible to scrape data from multiple websites, combed, and sold in big batches. Then it can be used for phishing and other tricking campaigns connected with sharing private details.

However, scraping is not always used with mean intentions. Search engines also scrape to gather and index data. This benefits not the websites only, but the users as well. Nevertheless, LinkedIn fights with scraping.

LinkedIn is used by more than 500 million people address. For a usual user of this network it is possible to:

• find your old university or high school acquaintances;
• communicate with major players in your field;
• strategize your future business move etc.

The possibilities are different for the scraper, though. Scrapers do not manually connect with people there, but search for personal information and data from company profiles. LinkedIn is a gold-mine for this!

LinkedIn, its Functions and Peculiarities

As many other websites, LinkedIn also has scripts on their data. It was initially designed for professionals and as a business network rather than a social network like, for example, Facebook. It is also possible to create related job groups of local people and create an anonymous Facebook account profiles for comfortable communication between the professionals.

LinkedIn restricts IP addresses that want to fetch data. Moreover, it blocks website access to such IPs. The site develops, deploys and maintains models and rules that detect and prevent scraping. It looks for signs of automated profile address viewing and logged-in scraping. The site searches bot-like activities and blocks such accounts.

It is necessary to be very cautious if you are in need of scraping LinkedIn. If you do not want to be detected and blocked, the best way out is using proxies for LinkedIn data scraping.

Headhunting on LinkedIn: How and What for the Data is Gathered

Headhunting on LinkedIn can give you tons of valuable information. For example, from personal accounts you will receive data like:

• profile names;
• skill competencies;
• e-mail addresses;
• industries etc.

From company profiles you will get:

• current employees;
• the quantity of employees;
• job postings;
• many other important information.

As you can see, such information is incredibly valuable.

Before scraping this platform make sure you covered the next crucial points:

• The apps that are needed for the scraping process.
• The parameters in the applications should be suitable for your needs.
• Which type of pages will you scrape: private or public ones?
• Which type of proxies are you going to use?
• The quantity of proxies you will need.

Having chosen an application that is comfortable for usage, do not forget about two crucial parameters since LinkedIn is known to be more sensitive to them as other websites unblock proxy. Those are threads and timeouts.

The good thing is that the more threads you set, the faster your scrape will be. The bad thing is that the more threads you set, the quicker you will be banned. To avoid ban you need to use one proxy per thread. In such a way you will be perceived as a regular user and will not be banned.

Under timeouts you should understand the actual time it takes a server to answer to a proxy before it starts a new request. Here is an example: if the timeouts are adjusted to 10 seconds, the proxy will forward another request for data from the server in 10 seconds if the server is not responding.

Everybody wants to get more results in a shorter period of time, so scrapers often set timeouts to 1-2 seconds. Here is when they got caught. It is much safer to set timeouts somewhere between 30-60 seconds. In such a way the server will have enough time before the same proxy sends one more request. A human does not reload a website’s page every second on repeat and LinkedIn address knows it.

Scraping LinkedIn private pages is possible if you create accounts as access points to LinkedIn for a scrape. Choose reliable software and follow the threads and timeouts. Use one IP address like Japan proxy address to create one account and then scrape on that account. In such a way your activities will be perceived as human-like.

Proxies for LinkedIn Scraping

Successful scraping of a difficult website like LinkedIn has a rule: the more proxies you have the better. The fewer proxies you use, the quicker they will be detected. Also, do not forget to test everything.

Choosing a service for anonymous scraping, look for proxys premium. Always pay attention to the quantity of IPs in the pool, the variety of countries, the safety level and the prices.

The List of Proxy Accommodations for LinkedIn Scraping

Get acquainted with the trusted proxy service list for scraping LinkedIn for valuable data.

Luminati

This company boasts software with more than 72 million IP addresses. Luminati proxies are fast and the protection level is high. There are different types of proxies available here. Unfortunately this famous provider has software prices that bite.

Smartproxy

Smartproxy offers more than 40 million residential proxies. They work with LinkedIn, are not quite slow and can be used as unblock site software. There are more than 195 locations available for you to choose from.

OnlineProxy

This accommodation has more than 60 million IP addresses in its pool and gives a possibility to choose from more than 100 locations around the globe with targeting up to the city. The connection software does not fall off, everything works quickly. The prices are more pleasant than at other reputable companies. OnlineProxy promises up to 99.5% without banning what can be rarely met among its software competitors. This is perfect for LinkedIn valuable profile information scraping.