James Dooley: How to rank LinkedIn statuses in Google search. Today I am joined with Jesper Nissen, who does a lot of parasite SEO and ranks different social media platforms in Google. Let’s jump straight in. Jesper, how do you rank LinkedIn posts in Google?

Jesper Nissen: LinkedIn is a super powerful domain. It is around DA90. It is easy. You just type out your post, write about what you want to rank for, then publish it.

Jesper Nissen: LinkedIn is similar to Facebook in that you have a personal profile and company pages. I mainly use my personal profile, but I also post on company pages. When it comes to ranking power, I do not see any difference. They rank just as well.

Jesper Nissen: You can post standard text updates or long-form articles. The issue with LinkedIn articles is that they were heavily abused by affiliate SEOs. They used to rank extremely well. They still can, but only if you get them indexed.

Jesper Nissen: I cannot get LinkedIn articles to index anymore. I have tried on personal profiles and company pages. It does not work for me. So I focus on standard status posts.

James Dooley: Do LinkedIn statuses rank just as well?

Jesper Nissen: Almost as well. Not quite as strong as articles used to be, but still very strong.

Jesper Nissen: LinkedIn articles used to rank like Medium posts. If you can get a Medium article indexed today, it ranks extremely well. Better than X, LinkedIn or Facebook. Not as strong as YouTube, but still very powerful. LinkedIn articles were similar, but Google has clearly adjusted something.

Jesper Nissen: Now I just focus on status updates. I spend two hours every morning posting across multiple social platforms.

Jesper Nissen: I use my own tool to post across multiple accounts. For LinkedIn, there is one thing you must do and one thing you must not do.

Jesper Nissen: The first seven to 12 words in your post become the SEO title. When Google crawls and indexes your post, that is what you rank for.

Jesper Nissen: The thing you must not do is use hashtags.

James Dooley: Not even at the end?

Jesper Nissen: Do not use them at all. Google picks up hashtags as the SEO title instead of your intended keyword.

Jesper Nissen: You might write a perfect post targeting something like local SEO for plumbers in London. But if you add a hashtag, Google may use that instead. The post will index, but it will not rank for your target keyword.

James Dooley: So hashtags are fine on other platforms?

Jesper Nissen: Yes. On platforms like X or Facebook, hashtags can help discovery. They can improve engagement because users search using them.

Jesper Nissen: I use consistent hashtags to train the platform algorithm. For example, I combine parasite SEO with my brand name. That improves engagement on X. It does not impact Google rankings there, but on LinkedIn it causes problems.

Jesper Nissen: So for LinkedIn, avoid hashtags completely.

James Dooley: Do you send LinkedIn posts to an indexer?

Jesper Nissen: Yes. LinkedIn is slightly awkward. You need to copy the post link, paste it into your browser, wait for it to redirect, then take the final URL.

Jesper Nissen: That final URL is what you send to the indexer.

Jesper Nissen: LinkedIn URLs are keyword rich, and combined with the first seven to 12 words acting as the title, this is why LinkedIn ranks well.

Jesper Nissen: LinkedIn content is also cited frequently in AI overviews. More often than X or Facebook in my experience.

James Dooley: Do likes or comments affect rankings?

Jesper Nissen: No. It does not matter at all. I have tested it extensively.

Jesper Nissen: LinkedIn engagement is generally lower anyway. Fewer likes, fewer shares, fewer comments. But the posts still rank.

James Dooley: Jesper, it has been a pleasure. That is how to rank LinkedIn statuses in Google search.