Guess who’s viewed your profile?
Maybe you’ve wondered in the past who’s been viewing your profile. If so, you’re not alone — it’s been one of our most common feature requests. I’m very happy to announce that we launched a new feature that’ll both tell you how many people have viewed your profile in the past week as well as reveal some interesting characteristics about them.
This was an interesting product for us to design: as the profile owner, we understand you’d like to see exactly who’s viewed your profile, but as a profile viewer, you want your privacy protected. We recently figured out an elegant solution that works for everyone: instead of showing you exactly who’s viewed your profile, we’ll show you some interesting information about the users’ industry or company background without revealing their identity.
When you log in, you may notice on the right hand side of your homepage a box with the number of users who’ve viewed your profile recently. Once you click on it, you’ll see relevant industry and job background details of the users who’ve viewed your profile. Of course, you have control over what is displayed when you view someone’s profile, ranging from not showing any details, to allowing simple anonymous characteristics, like title and industry, to revealing your full name and headline. You can change your settings here.
So if you’re wondering who has viewed your LinkedIn profile, go ahead and check it out. Let us know what you think. Also, if you are interested in building similar cool new products at LinkedIn, check out some of our recent job openings.
Michael Arrington from TechCrunch and TechMeme discuss our newly launched feature.
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Marketing Nirvana May 11th, 2007
Rubel, Lunch 2.0 and a new LinkedInfeature!
Breaking News: We just announced a nifty little feature on LinkedIn called Whos viewed my profile? (having a self-explanatory title definitely helps). Here is the settings page. Check it out on the right hand side of your homepage…
Eric Scheid May 11th, 2007
This is very cool and is excellent feedback to help gauge whether any tweaks to my profile are having the desired effect.
How often will this information update?
Rich Tatum May 12th, 2007
Weird, I don’t see the nifty box on my LI home page.
Rich
http://tatumweb.com/blog/
Sandy Charet May 12th, 2007
This was great…but where’d it go? Here on the 11th, gone on the 12th. What happened?
Jay Meydad May 12th, 2007
A very smart move to get more people to upgrade to a premium account.
More about it on my blog:
http://www.meydad.com/2007/05/11/linkedin-implemeting-online-dating-sites-tactics/
Yulia May 13th, 2007
Steven, I love this new feature! Thank you for making my Linkedin experience even more rewarding! Another thing that could be useful is to add search functionality into the my connections section as once the # of folks go beyound 100, it takes time to dig up names when you want to contact them, etc.
Jouni Miettunen May 14th, 2007
Hmph,
Is this the reason why my account was suspended? You had a good idea, but didn’t think about worst case scenarios? Maybe underestimated the stress testing?
I recently quit my current work and thus will lose access to old emails, cannot take them with me. Therefore I exported all email addresses from inbox and imported to LinkedIn: about 12000 addresses from about 50000 emails. I wanted to check quickly who had already joined linkedin and later estimate whether I knew them well enough to propose a link (7%).
The following day my account was suspended, without any explanation email. No answers from Customer Service. No hints in FAQ what to do next.
Well, I hope you can fix the “who viewed my profile” system. Sorry for the trouble!
Cheers,
–jouni very happy he didn’t export all email addresses from all work related databases
Mario Sundar May 14th, 2007
@rich tatum, @sandy charet: you can find the feature on the right hand side of your homepage when you log in.
Let me know if you aren’t seeing it still.
Dave May 14th, 2007
And would it not be nice to get integration with Google maps to see where your contacts are located throughout the world… I would love to have that functionality!
Sheilah Etheridge May 14th, 2007
Hi Steven,
About the new feature of who has viewed our profiles I must admit this isn’t a critical issue for me, but since many other members have asked for it I am pleased to see LI has added the feature.
I am curious though as to what the updating time period is on this feature. I have been showing the same data for the last several days and today we played with it to see if it would change and neither my data or those of the other party changed at all. We tested different levels of what would be shown to others.
The only change was that yesterday and prior days it said XX number of people viewed my profile in the last 1 week and today it shows the same people and same number of people have viewed it in the last 1 day.
I am not a paying member yet so perhaps the hidden data has changed, but those that are visible have not. Any ideas on that?
Sheilah
Mario Sundar May 15th, 2007
Hi Jouni,
Your account was suspended due to unusually high activity. I’ve spoken to customer service and it has been restored.
Let me know if you’re having further issues.
Steven Stegman May 15th, 2007
@Sheilah, @Sandy, @Eric: we try to update the results nightly; during the updating process, the results are unavailable. We’re working on getting the kinks out of the system and adding a ‘you have new viewers’ flag.
@Sheilah, I’ll look into your specific issue. We recently added the 1/3/5 day categories.
rich.tatum@tatumweb.com May 15th, 2007
Steven,
Thanks for the update. Yes, I’m seeing the fancy box in my profile now. I’ve even blogged on it:
“Will Social Network for Food”
http://tatumweb.com/blog/2007/05/15/networking/
It would be useful if you could ultimately provide a “visibility” flag in their profile that not only makes their profile visible, but would also make their footprints on others profile visible, too.
Regards,
Rich
http://tatumweb.com/blog/
Bruce Beswick May 16th, 2007
No visitors box on my page - is there a secret “horse whisperer” sequence to initiate it?
Thanks
Bez
Steven Stegman May 16th, 2007
@Bruce,
It’s a beta feature, so it may not necessarily be available to all users all the time. Please try again later.
Steve Dembo May 16th, 2007
I don’t see the box??
Glenn May 17th, 2007
Why is this feature there during one visit to LI and not the next on the same day?
Howard Earle Halpern May 18th, 2007
I am extremely impressed with all the upgrades LI has been making lately. “Who’s viewed” is one of the best. The only suggestion I would make is to display a message more prominently, letting people know that info about the viewer is being transmitted. Reason: it may be a little scary for some.
Initially, I liked the idea of being able to view a profile anonymously. When I found out about the new feature, I was a little concerned. I left my setting at the default. Then I changed it to “Don’t show.” Now, it’s at “Show my name.” Why the initial concern? Because profile views may attract unwanted email contact. Why the change? Because I decided the benefit of openness outweighed the risk. Also, if I really do not want to hear from somebody, I won’t view that person’s profile. There are always trade-offs.
I am sharing the evolution of my thought on this topic in the hope it will provide some insight to LI staff about how a member may react on discovering this new feature. For me, it was a matter of getting used to a new idea. For some, the feature may be construed as an invasion of privacy. The default setting is generic. But in many instances, I believe it will be possible to guess who viewed one’s profile. That’s why I believe it may be scary to some.
Yves May 19th, 2007
I am totally appalled by the way this new feature has been implemented.
1 - no prior communication whatsoever
2 - no explanation at how it works
3 - much more serious, you are today releasing past information (who I have viewed in the past three months) when at the time I had no idea that you would tell this people that I would have viewed them. When viewing at somebody’s three months ago, it was supposed to be anonymous. Now, you are making this person know that I have seen her. Your feature is fine going forward, but you shouldn’t release information from a time when we were surfing anonymously. This is a breach of privacy!
Rich Tatum May 20th, 2007
I found the privacy settings in my account and now realize I can leave detailed “footprints” behind in my profile viewing.
I understand Howard’s concern about privacy issues. Frankly, sites like LinkedIN, Facebook, and etc., are all tools for cyberstalkers, wingnuts, and overly talkative lonely people to connect with us in annoying and sometimes unhealthy ways. However, managing your profile is the first step toward managing your privacy. If you don’t want to be contacted except by individuals who know you, then don’t put any personally identifiable information in your profile. Definitely don’t put your email address in the clear, or any links to your blog or website, and etc. And manage your profile’s privacy settings.
On the other hand, half the point behind sites like this is to make the re-discovery of existing and previous relationships easier, and to forge new, beneficial relationships. Short of somebody showing up at my door with a sledghammer in hand, I can easily deny inquirers my inbox. I hit the delete key. And I have a hard time imagining more unwanted email coming from LinkedIN than I already get via spam.
And being jobless right now, I want as many ways for potential employers to find me as possible, and I want to make it easy for them. And, ultimately, I hope they reveal their identities when visiting profiles, because I’d like to know who might be visiting.
Regards,
Rich, aka BlogRodent
http://tatumweb.com/blog/
Steven Stegman May 21st, 2007
@Yves, @Howard
Thank you for your feedback.
Our default setting specifically doesn’t reveal your identity, only anonymous characteristics. At LinkedIn, we care about our users’ privacy (which is why we designed it that way, even though it would have been more interesting for people to see exactly who’s viewed them and easier for us to build).
Feedback thus far has been extremely positive, but we’ll be looking at ways to improve and refine the feature as well as how to improve the way we communicate with our users.
micah May 23rd, 2007
Great feature. Would be excellent if you offered an RSS feed.
Micah
Phillip Wood May 24th, 2007
I found the ‘who’s viewed my profile really useful and it is a great feature, there are a few functions which are a little wooly, first being it disappeared from my screen on the 23rd May! Second being the refresh of information on who has viewed not chanmging for several days at a time.
Regards
Phillip
Glenn May 27th, 2007
Great feature, but why is it there one day and not the next?
Catherine May 29th, 2007
Interesting new feature!
Would it be possible to have our own name removed from the list in case someone has had a look at his or her own profile ?
This is mostly when only five names are displayed.
Thanks
Catherine
Rich Tatum May 30th, 2007
I second the suggestion for a feed. I’d really like to have this in my feed reader.
I can also envision a better way to manage this from both a profile surfer’s perspective and a profile owner. Take page look at Google’s Search History tool. You could offer a link to a LinkedIN member’s profile history and from that page you could not only see who’s visited your profile, but you can also see a history of profiles you’ve visited. Then with one click of a button, you can “edit” your surfing history so that you can erase your footprints.
Of course, this wouldn’t remove evidence from previously delivered feeds (if they were available) and it wouldn’t have to remove the evidence from the database. Just set a flag that marks the visit as “anonymous.”
Whether you’d want to leave a flag in the “Who’s visited” box as “anonymous” or just remove the entry should be up for discussion. As a user, I would find it startling and a little frightening if my “Who’s visited” box was filled with nothing but “anonymous” entries — I might feel I was being stalked! On the other hand, some feedback about profile activity — even anonymous activity, would be better than nothing at all.
Regards,
Rich
http://tatumweb.com/blog/
Critical June 1st, 2007
“@Yves, @Howard
…
Our default setting specifically doesn’t reveal your identity, only anonymous characteristics.”
Well. Not quite. I realized that in some-but not all!-cases the “anonymous characteristics” include the company name. It doesn’t take a private investigator to figure out who the person is. Especially when the company name is accompanied by title.
How is this anonymous?
Otherwise the feature is a good idea.
Brian July 2nd, 2007
Not seeing the feature at all (never had)
Kirk Haselton August 8th, 2007
Was available yesterday, not today. Is it gone forever? temporarily? Is my account unusually active? Is it still beta?
It’s a great feature, though I agree with some of the commenters that default settings should be “don’t show” and that it should be clearly communicated, even if beta.
Thanks.
Marc Watley August 14th, 2007
This feature is fantastic and quite helpful, but it seems to be gone now…where’d it go?
habib August 14th, 2007
ditto, bring the profile view tracker back!
Erin August 15th, 2007
Ditto! Where’d it go???
Erin August 15th, 2007
Ditto! Where’d it go???
Dave Couch August 15th, 2007
Where’d this feature go? Is it coming back?
Steven Stegman August 15th, 2007
hi guys,
We expect to have Who’s Viewed (and People You May Know) back online tonight or tomorrow. I’m glad you all are enjoying it and we’re looking forward to improving it (we just upgraded the server it runs on).
Vikas September 23rd, 2007
How do you determine “People you may know”?
William October 1st, 2007
“People you may know” doesn’t appear on my page anymore. Has it been permanently replaced by “Who’s Viewed” or are there settings that need to be modified?
Freddie October 1st, 2007
Yes, very frustrating. Why does it appear sometimes and not appear other times. If you’re going to offer it, make it consistent.
E October 26th, 2007
I don’t see the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” feature anywhere. Is it only for paying Linked In users?
NB December 4th, 2007
I don’t see this feature either.
Blake Ratcliff December 16th, 2007
I have a large network (relatively) on LinkedIn and need urgently better tools to manage my contacts. Some items that would help immensely include:
- An ability to categorize contacts around their “type” connection to me.
- An ability to create groups of contacts based on how I use them.
- An ability to ask the system to organize my contacts other than alphabetically such as recent contacts, frequency of contact, or perhaps assigned priority.
Is anything like this on the drawing board.
MP January 4th, 2008
I don’t see the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” feature anywhere.
Christian Bach January 4th, 2008
Nice feature. Now I just have to learn how to use it.
Nelson Davis January 5th, 2008
I saw this feature yesterday on my page, but now it is gone. Why can’t I view it now?
Thanks
Eric C January 14th, 2008
I’ve been using the profile view for months and I recently changed my computer from PC to MAC and I don’t see the “Who has viewed your profile” box anymore. What have I done?
Josh January 17th, 2008
I found this feature to be very useful, but it appears to have disappeared with the new year. Has it been disabled? If so, I hope it will return very soon.
KB January 22nd, 2008
I am still trying to find “the box” … I even emailed for help and haven’t gotten any. Is there some trick that I need to know? I am using OS 10, if that makes a difference.
Thanks.
Kevin February 5th, 2008
Is this feature coming back?
Kevin February 5th, 2008
My guess is LInkedIn got spooked because of the backlash against Facebook’s beacon and removed it. I found it to be a useful feature as well and would like to see it back.
Milena H February 16th, 2008
Hi, Steven,
I also can’t see this box and it is not only today or yesterday but all the time. Can you help me get this feature, I am so curious. Thanks!
Mike March 4th, 2008
Any update? This great functionality should be made available again.
Thanks.
Margarita March 14th, 2008
Hi Steven,
As mane other users I do not see this box. Can you please help me with it.
Thanks!
db March 20th, 2008
like everyone else, I can’t find this anymore - where is it???????????
Julie March 20th, 2008
I don’t see this feature either and would really like to have it!
Anil Gaur March 28th, 2008
‘Who’s Viewed My Profile’ was earlier appearing on my homepage but not now. How do I make it appear again?
Regards
Espen March 29th, 2008
Is this feature gone from the site? It was kind of cool
Would be nice to have been informed about it though. When things just vanish it’s kind of strange and not really that user friendly. Hope this will get better in the future. If so; Thx.
Mario Sundar April 2nd, 2008
@vikas, @william
We’re phasing out “People You May Know” to more users, so I’d urge patience.
For all the others who’ve asked about “Who’s viewed my Profile”, I’m sure Steve Stegman will be thrilled to hear that. Do check out your LinkedIn homepage under the Summary Widget (left pane). Click on the Views section, which should lead you to the “Who’s viewed my profile” page.
Not seeing it, still? Feel free to email me msundar@linkedin.com. Thanks for the appreciation and the feedback.
Mario Sundar April 2nd, 2008
@blake ratcliffe,
thanks for the suggestion. I’ve passed on your feedback to Chris Richman. All I’d say is stay tuned.
sven April 9th, 2008
The “Who’s viewed my Profile” feature has also vanished from my LinkedIn homepage - I’d assumed the whole feature was scrapped, but it sounds like it should still be available.
@Mario
I tried to follow your advice above, but my homepage’s Summary Widget has no “Views” section - only Home, Profile, Contacts, Inbox, and Groups (none of which have Views as a subsection). Am I missing something?
Siu-Kwan Tsui April 14th, 2008
This feature has mysteriously disappear from my homepage. Is this feature just a teaser?
Roman April 15th, 2008
How is this data updated? Is it live tracking? As in if I view someone’s profile, will they’ll see it immediately? Or is updated on some sort of periodic schedule?
Marcelo IH April 16th, 2008
Hi Mario,
I’d like to activate the feature again. I don’t have the “Views” option in my panel…
Thanks!
Marcelo.
Matt April 20th, 2008
Mario et al.,
I still cannot find this feature … it is not under Views section anywhere.
This is a great feature … please bring it back!
-Matt
Ron April 23rd, 2008
can’t find the “who has viewed my profile” feature either..
Robert Jan Vonk April 25th, 2008
I like the idea of Who’s Viewed My Profile, but:
1) too often, I cannot find this feature. How do I get there? It seems to pop up sometimes and vanish the day after.
2) I do not trust the result. It seems that the same people keep looking at my profile for weeks.
So far, my conclusion is that it does not work.
Kurt H April 25th, 2008
Any word on when the “Who’s viewed my profile” functionality is coming back?
Ced April 28th, 2008
Hi,
I’ve the very same trouble: no more “profile views” available, and no “views” option in any pane!
Thanks a lot for bringing it back…
Ced.
Mario Sundar April 28th, 2008
Hi all,
It’s really cool that WVMP is a feature that’s on many users’ Most wanted list. Couple of things to remember:
1. The feature hasn’t been rolled out to 100% of our users. You may be a part of that small group.
2. If the algorithm doesn’t find relevant information pertaining to your LinkedIn profile, chances are that you won’t be seeing any “Views”.
That’s probably why some of you are not able to find the feature currently.
Ced April 28th, 2008
Hi Mario,
I had this feature, and could see many views on my profile, but it suddenly vanished…please bring it back!
Ced
kate May 2nd, 2008
Mario, it’s not that it hasn’t rolled out to us, it’s that it’s been rolled back in! I had it for a year and now it’s gone!
It would have been an ideal way to set expectations if LinkedIn had communicated up front that this was a beta feature that might come and go - in lieu of that, could you give us a timeline/tentative rollout date/anything indicating when we might get it back?
Salih May 3rd, 2008
Hi all,
i was thinking that it was me who have the missing feature, but it seems that i have a company
it is my best view, and i used to check people who viewed my profile on every visit.
currently it is nothing is showing on the left summary pane.
i’ll be waiting for it
Mario Sundar May 5th, 2008
@kate, @salih and @ced
I understand your frustrations, but if you don’t have any views in the past week or so, then it may not show up.
In addition, since we’ve mentioned this was a beta feature, the algorithm is being fine-tuned with every release, which may have impacted it as well.
Anna May 9th, 2008
@ Mario. This has disappeared from my profile as well. It was one of the more useful features as it enabled me to assess how effective LinkedIn is - necessary to justify my investing more time in it. Is there any way I can get it back?
JK May 21st, 2008
Hi,
I cannot find the ‘Who’s viewed my profile’ link anywhere. Can you please help me out?
I have signed out and logged in again, checked all over the home page but could not find it.
Regards,
JK
Rhonda Ladner September 30th, 2008
I was seeing who viewed my profile and now that feature is no longer on my account here in LinkedIn. I miss seeing it.
sadia November 6th, 2008
i wanna know who veiws my profile