LinkedIn Search Now Faster, Displays More Relevant Results

As the world’s largest business-oriented social networking site, LinkedIn certainly requires a powerful search engine to ensure that the “more than 330 million profiles, 2 million jobs, 3 million companies, nearly 20 million SlideShares and member posts” can be searched by members.

On January 6, 2015, the company announced a major update to its search engine that would make searching for information on the site faster than ever before. According to LinkedIn’s Kumaresh Pattabiraman, the newly unveiled “instant search experience” could save LinkedIn members more than a year of cumulative time spent searching.

Figure 1 (Source: LinkedIn Official Blog)

The revamped search engine now helps members find the right people by surfacing results based on shared connections, companies, and groups. [See Figure 1 above] This feature would be useful when the proper spelling of a name or company is uncertain. Additionally, relevant content, like posts and SlideShare presentations from thought leaders, are surfaced and displayed in the search results to help members stay informed on professionally relevant information.

As for searching beyond their immediate connections, all LinkedIn members will now be able to search through their connections up to the third degree. This feature was previously exclusive to LinkedIn’s Premium members, but will now be available to all members. [See Figure 2 below]

Figure 2 (Source: LinkedIn Official Blog)

Pattabiraman admits that going through LinkedIn’s entire database would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, which is why search results will now be personalized and based on user data. By considering factors like job history, members will get more tailored search results that will help them “cut through the clutter” and find what is most relevant to them. As Figure 3 below demonstrates, a marketing professional searching for jobs in a specific company will be shown the most relevant marketing jobs in the results ahead of other results.

Figure 3 (Source: LinkedIn Official Blog)

LinkedIn has been hard at work reengineering its search function. In June 2014, the Galene update was introduced to the LinkedIn search engine, which facilitated broader results within the network and expedited the search process.

With Pattabiraman saying that these new changes are just the start of what’s to come in 2015, it would be wise to keep an eye on what else LinkedIn has in store.

Has the reengineered search engine improved your experience on LinkedIn?

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