LinkedIn Backlinks Are Nofollow. Here's How I Still Use Them to Build Links (2026)

I spent a year treating LinkedIn like a link-building machine. Profile link, Featured section, article links, comment links. Then someone on an SEO team asked me a simple question: do you know those links are all nofollow?

They are. Every outbound link on LinkedIn carries a rel=“nofollow” attribute, which means search engines are told not to pass ranking credit through to your site. Google’s own documentation on qualifying outbound links explains what that attribute does.

So why write a guide about LinkedIn backlinks at all? Because the links themselves were never the prize. In this post, I’ll show you exactly how I use LinkedIn as a distribution and outreach layer that produces real dofollow links from other sites, plus the referral traffic and visibility that comes with it. We’ll cover profile setup, Business Pages, post formats, the outreach workflow that actually lands guest posts, the ethics, and the metrics.

If you’re ignoring LinkedIn entirely, you’re missing out on SEO improvements, quality traffic, and a position as an industry leader. Backlinks are endorsements that connect your content to the wider web. LinkedIn is where you earn them from the people who can give them.

Building your LinkedIn profile

Your LinkedIn profile is a cornerstone of your personal brand. A well-crafted profile shows your expertise and is a channel for valuable backlinks.

Here’s the honest framing I wish someone had given me earlier: the link in your profile will not move your rankings on its own. It’s nofollow. What it does is send referral traffic from people who already decided you’re worth checking out, and that visibility is what turns into dofollow links later, when an editor or a partner links to your site from their own domain.

Start with a headline that captures what you do and includes relevant keywords. Your summary should articulate your value proposition and include a clear call-to-action pointing viewers toward your website or blog.

The Featured section is prime real estate. Put your best work there: posts, articles, or media that link back to your site. It drives traffic and it shows anyone landing on your profile that there’s a body of work behind the headline.

Keep the profile updated and you’ve built the foundation. But a profile is passive. The traffic it sends is traffic that already found you. If you want that attention to become pipeline rather than a vanity metric, you need a way to work the people who visit. That’s where automate LinkedIn relationship-building stops being a nice-to-have and starts being the system.

LinkedIn Business Pages for Backlinks and Traffic Drive

Your personal profile covers you. Your Business Page covers the brand, and it’s the asset journalists and bloggers check when they’re deciding whether you’re a credible source to cite.

A well-optimized business page can amplify your brand’s visibility and bolster your SEO efforts. Start with a detailed, keyword-rich company description so the page is findable.

Update the page regularly with news updates and product launches that matter to your audience. LinkedIn’s own Help Center publishes best practices for Pages, and it’s worth following the official guidance rather than whatever cadence advice is circulating this month.

Mix in visuals. Images and video make updates easier to engage with, and embedding links inside those posts drives traffic to your site while diversifying where your brand shows up across the web.

By using your LinkedIn Business Page fully, you create a channel for quality traffic and a credibility signal that supports every outreach email you send afterwards.

Craft LinkedIn Posts for Engagement and Backlinks

A page nobody reads doesn’t help you. Posts are what put the page and the profile in front of people.

Shareable posts with embedded links can elevate your site’s presence. Focus on industry insights, thought leadership, and updates that give people something usable. When those posts link back to your site, they drive readers to your content and put your work in front of the exact people who run blogs, newsletters, and podcasts in your space.

Two formats I’d prioritize over everything else:

Data posts. Original numbers from your own product, customer base, or an internal study. These get cited. A journalist or blogger who needs a stat will link to the source page on your site, and that link is dofollow.

Guest post pitches disguised as value. Publish a genuinely good breakdown on LinkedIn, then approach the editors who engaged with it. You’ve already proven you can write for their audience.

Publishing articles directly on LinkedIn is worth doing too. Use relevant keywords in your title, headings, and body. An SEO-friendly LinkedIn article can gain traction on the platform and get shared into places that do link back to you.

The problem with all of this is reach. Posting and hoping is not a distribution strategy. I run systematic engagement, viewing profiles, connecting, and commenting on the accounts I want reading my work, through automate LinkedIn relationship-building so the right 200 people see a post instead of a random 2,000.

Do that consistently and you get a loop: posts earn attention, attention earns shares, shares put you in front of people with domains.

Network Your Way to Backlink Opportunities

Networking on LinkedIn goes past making connections. It’s about building relationships that lead to real backlink opportunities.

By engaging with other professionals and sharing each other’s content, you can establish a network that benefits everyone involved. Networking tactics that work will help you build relationships with influencers and thought leaders in your industry. These people have reach and the ability to put your content in front of a much wider audience.

Participating in LinkedIn groups relevant to your industry is another way to get visible. Contribute useful insights, join the discussions, and you position yourself as someone worth reading. More profile visits follow, and so do more links as group members find your content.

Approach all of it with a mindset of providing value. Leave insightful comments and share content people actually need, and organic link growth follows.

Now the part that nobody else writing about this topic will tell you, because they don’t have the tooling to back it up.

Relationship-building one profile at a time does not scale past about 20 targets a month. If you want 50 guest posts or 100 resource-page placements, you need an outreach engine. Here’s the workflow I run:

1. 1.

   Build a list of sites that already rank for your target topics and have a blog accepting contributors.

2. 2.

   Find verified emails for site owners and editors so your pitches land in an inbox instead of bouncing.

3. 3.

   Run a multichannel sequence: LinkedIn connection request, a comment on their recent post, then the email pitch three days later. The LinkedIn touch is why the email gets opened.

4. 4.

   Follow up twice. Stop after that.

That sequence is the whole reason LinkedIn matters for links. The platform’s own links are nofollow, but the relationships you build there are how you get dofollow links from everyone else’s domains. If you want the email side of this nailed down, our LinkedIn outreach strategy guide covers the messaging.

Track which connections engage most with your content and keep investing in those relationships.

Ethical Link Building and LinkedIn

Running outreach at volume makes the ethics question concrete, so let’s deal with it.

It’s important to maintain professional integrity and stick to ethical link-building practices. LinkedIn values authenticity and trust, and that extends to how links get created and shared.

Ethical link building here means providing value to your network and the wider community. Share content that’s relevant and useful enough that people link back to it on their own. Links get earned rather than manipulated, which is what Google’s guidelines on quality backlinking ask for.

Understanding LinkedIn’s guidelines keeps your efforts above board. LinkedIn’s policies discourage spammy behavior and promote genuine interactions, so gaming the system with artificial links risks penalties or account suspension.

There’s a legal layer too. If you’re pitching backlink requests at volume across Europe, your outreach needs a lawful basis, an opt-out in every message, and clean data handling. lemlist is GDPR-compliant, which means the contact data and sending side are covered while you focus on whether the pitch is any good.

Quality of links outweighs quantity, especially for search engines that prioritize user experience.

Use Metrics to Refine Your LinkedIn Link-building Strategy

Ethics keep you out of trouble. Metrics tell you whether any of this is working.

Start with Google Search Console. It’s free, it’s the primary source on how Google sees your site, and its Links report shows which domains actually link to you and which pages they point at. Ahrefs and Semrush go further on referring-domain authority and competitor gap analysis if you have the budget. Google Analytics shows you how much referral traffic LinkedIn genuinely sends, which is the number that matters given the nofollow reality.

Read two things from that data: how much traffic LinkedIn drives, and which referring domains you’ve earned from your outreach. That second number is the real scoreboard.

Review your backlink profile regularly so you can spot and disavow harmful links that could hurt your SEO. It keeps your profile clean and in line with search engine guidelines.

Then there’s the outreach side, which most SEO tools don’t measure at all. You need to know which pitches got replies, which editors said yes, and which campaigns produced live links. I track every backlink pitch reply in one place so LinkedIn responses and email responses sit in the same thread instead of two tabs and a spreadsheet.

Use what you learn to adjust. That might mean changing the content you publish or rewriting the pitch that keeps getting ignored. Continuous refinement based on performance data keeps your LinkedIn link-building strategy moving.

Additional Resources

A few primary sources worth bookmarking as you go deeper into LinkedIn SEO and link building:

• •

  Google Search Central’s documentation on qualifying outbound links, the authoritative explanation of nofollow, sponsored, and UGC attributes.

• •

  LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies, which define what’s allowed on the platform.

• •

  Google Search Console for monitoring which domains link to you.

Key Takeaways

-> LinkedIn links are nofollow. Treat them as referral traffic and visibility, not ranking credit.

-> Optimize your profile. Add a professional photo, write an engaging headline, and keep your experience current.

-> Publish data posts. Original numbers get cited, and citations are dofollow links.

-> Use LinkedIn to warm up the editors and site owners you’ll pitch by email.

-> Increase your visibility by participating in LinkedIn groups.

-> Track results in Google Search Console and track replies in one inbox.

-> Try this cold email template for backlinks to add another tool to your SEO strategy.

Final thoughts

LinkedIn’s value for link building is in the relationships, not the links on the platform. The professional environment puts you in front of the people who own the domains you want links from, and a strong presence there makes every pitch you send more likely to get a yes.

So be proactive about it. Pick ten sites you’d want a link from this quarter, find the editors, and start the sequence.

That’s the part lemlist handles: LinkedIn touches and verified email pitches in one campaign, with every reply in one inbox. Teams rate it 4.6/5 on G2 across 2,000+ reviews.

Start a 14-day free trial and run your first backlink outreach campaign this week.