LinkedIn forgave me when Google wouldn't.

It’s not that I’d been evil, which Google has traditionally frowned upon. I just wasn’t coming up with the right search terms on the world’s leading search engine for learning about a particular business practice. I needed some guidance on how to prepare a certain kind of investor proposal and the results I found in the early pages of the search weren’t as comprehensive as I hoped. Then I thought “What about LinkedIn? They’ve got a search bar.”

“LinkedIn targets itself toward business,” I theorized, and might therefore find results relevant to business endeavors like mine. About a year and a half ago, they started letting all members create what are effectively business blogs through their posts system. I know this because I’ve used it. If your firm needed insights on Teams’ Brands & Regional Sports Networks or How Cricket Might Succeed in the U.S. or even Sports Trousers, you’d find them on my page. If other folks also use LinkedIn to position themselves as insightful in their fields, I figured I should be able to turn up some helpful results.

Sure enough, the first article I found had a whole list of material relevant to the document I needed to assemble. Its author works for a company specializing in assisting entrepreneurs looking for finance. The content marketing piece she put together certainly demonstrated that she knew whereof she spoke. If we decided to go that route, her company would definitely get strong consideration. In this case, at least, LinkedIn proved more forgiving of my vague search terms than did Google.
One can modify one’s search to look only through “posts,” and it probably makes sense that if you’re looking solely for industry insight, LinkedIn might be a good place to start. Google creates algorithms that identify what you need with amazing accuracy. However, they necessarily cover a worldwide web. LinkedIn covers only business, so it follows that sometimes it might offer more refined results than even the best general-purpose search engine.

Like many (almost all, probably) of you, I also use LinkedIn to search for people. I’ve searched the names of former colleagues, potential business partners, and newly met connections on the platform, finding success more often than not. LinkedIn recently reduced the number of searches non-premium members can use per month and I found myself up against the limit last month. My cost-benefit analysis has not yet assigned sufficient value to LinkedIn premium to induce me to purchase it, so I ironically turned back to Google. LinkedIn has done an excellent job of getting its users’ profiles noticed by the big G’s spiders. With a little information beyond the person’s name, then, you can often find his or her profile there if you’re limited on LinkedIn. Of course, no matter where you search, it always helps if the person has a unique name. If you’re looking for me, thank whichever of my ancestors decided to make “Rush” a family surname (which my parents repurposed into a first name).

Once I had tried this technique a bit, I came across the concept of Google X-Ray searches. This feature allows you to search within a particular website for results. It makes your LinkedIn search using Google even more effective. Did I find better information about “how to execute X-Ray searches” by looking on LinkedIn or Google? Both found usable results. Which one will you find superior? It might depend on your own preferences and how well you choose your search terms - both can be pretty forgiving with the right inputs.

My next search project will be to identify the right type of investor to work with us on our big sports/media endeavor. If you think you might be him or her, don’t wait for my techniques to work. Feel free to find me on LinkedIn yourself, which is luckily a bit easier thanks to the Rush side of the family.