Ranking LinkedIn Posts in Google Search | James Dooley & Jesper Nissen
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What Does “Ranking LinkedIn Posts in Google Search | James Dooley & Jesper Nissen” Talk About?
This episode of the Fatrank Podcast features James Dooley in conversation with parasite SEO specialist Jesper Nissen, focusing specifically on how to rank LinkedIn status posts in Google Search. Jesper breaks down why LinkedIn is such a powerful domain for this strategy, citing its high domain authority and keyword-rich URL structure as the primary reasons posts can surface in Google results. He also draws comparisons to other social platforms like Facebook, X, and Medium, noting the relative strengths and weaknesses of each when it comes to organic Google rankings.
A significant portion of the conversation covers the practical mechanics of getting LinkedIn posts to rank effectively. Jesper explains that standard status updates have become his preferred format after finding that LinkedIn Pulse articles, despite their strong ranking potential, are nearly impossible to get indexed today. He shares two critical rules: place the target keyword within the first seven to twelve words of the post, as Google uses this text as the SEO title, and never use hashtags on LinkedIn because Google detects them and uses them as the title instead, causing posts to rank for unintended or irrelevant keywords.
The episode also addresses the technical side of the process, including how to correctly capture the redirected URL from a LinkedIn post before submitting it to an indexer. Jesper mentions he is building his own social media posting tool called Somi Poster to manage posting across fifteen social media accounts simultaneously. He also touches on AI overview citations, noting that LinkedIn status posts are cited in Google AI overviews more frequently than posts from X or Facebook, and clarifies that engagement signals like likes and comments have no measurable impact on ranking.
“What you must not do is use hashtags.”
— Jesper Nissen
Who Are the Guests on “Ranking LinkedIn Posts in Google Search | James Dooley & Jesper Nissen”?
Jesper Nissen is a parasite SEO practitioner who specializes in ranking content on third-party social media platforms within Google Search. He actively manages posting across fifteen social media accounts and is currently developing his own social media scheduling tool called Somi Poster. Jesper has tested ranking strategies across multiple platforms including LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, and Medium, and brings a data-driven, test-based perspective to what works and what does not in modern parasite SEO.
James Dooley is the host of the Fatrank Podcast and is himself a well-known figure in the SEO industry, particularly in areas such as parasite SEO and digital marketing. He conducts this episode as part of a broader series covering how to rank posts on various social media platforms in Google Search, with companion episodes covering Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook also referenced in this conversation.
What Are the Key Takeaways From “Ranking LinkedIn Posts in Google Search | James Dooley & Jesper Nissen”?
Here are the key points discussed in this episode:
- LinkedIn status updates can rank effectively in Google Search due to the platform's high domain authority and keyword-rich URL structure, even though they may not rank quite as well as LinkedIn Pulse articles when those can be indexed.
- Placing your target keyword within the first seven to twelve words of a LinkedIn post is essential because Google uses that text as the SEO title for the post.
- Hashtags should never be used on LinkedIn posts intended for Google ranking because Google detects them and treats them as the SEO title, causing the post to rank for the wrong keywords regardless of where in the post the hashtag appears.
- When copying a LinkedIn post URL for indexing, you must paste it into a browser and wait for the redirect to complete before grabbing the final URL, as the initial copied link is not the canonical URL Google will index.
- Engagement signals such as likes and comments have no measurable effect on how well a LinkedIn post ranks in Google Search, meaning low-engagement posts can still rank well.
“LinkedIn is a little bit annoying that way. What I do is post, then there are the three dots in the upper right corner, and then you copy link to post. What you need to do is paste that URL into the browser and then wait a second or two until it redirects to the final URL.”
— Jesper Nissen
Is “Ranking LinkedIn Posts in Google Search | James Dooley & Jesper Nissen” Worth Listening To?
This episode is a concise, no-fluff walkthrough of a specific and actionable SEO tactic that most marketers overlook. Jesper Nissen does not speak in generalities. He gives exact guidance on keyword placement within the first seven to twelve words, explains the hashtag pitfall that silently kills rankings, and walks through the URL redirect issue that trips up even experienced practitioners. If you have ever tried to get social media content to rank in Google and wondered why it failed, this episode likely contains the specific answer.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is that Jesper backs his recommendations with personal testing rather than theory. He acknowledges when something frustrates him, such as LinkedIn Pulse articles no longer indexing, and pivots to what actually works today. The episode is short, focused, and easy to apply immediately. Combined with the other episodes in this series covering X, Facebook, and Instagram, it forms a practical reference guide for anyone building a parasite SEO strategy across social platforms.
Who Should Listen to “Ranking LinkedIn Posts in Google Search | James Dooley & Jesper Nissen”?
This episode is ideal for:
- SEO professionals and consultants looking to expand their parasite SEO toolkit with LinkedIn-specific tactics
- Digital marketers managing social media content who want their posts to generate organic Google search traffic
- Local business owners or their agencies trying to rank for local service keywords using free, high-authority platforms
- Content creators and personal brand builders who want their LinkedIn posts to appear in Google Search results for their target topics
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You can also subscribe using the RSS feed: https://feeds.transistor.fm/fatrank-podcast
What Are Listeners Saying About This Episode?
“Finally a clear explanation of why my LinkedIn posts were not ranking despite following generic advice. The hashtag tip alone was worth my time. I went back and checked old posts and every single one that underperformed had hashtags in it.”
“Jesper knows his stuff and does not waste words. The part about waiting for the LinkedIn URL redirect before indexing is something I never knew and it explains a lot of failures I had. Really practical episode.”
“I have been doing parasite SEO for a couple of years and still picked up two or three things I was not doing correctly. The keyword placement in the first seven to twelve words being used as the SEO title is a game changer for structuring LinkedIn posts going forward.”
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 a lot of ranking different social media platforms in Google Search. So let us jump straight in. Jesper Nissen, how do you rank LinkedIn posts in Google?
Jesper Nissen: LinkedIn is a super powerful domain, obviously DA90 or something like that. It is easy. Just type out some content, write a post about what you want to talk about and then post it. With LinkedIn, it is interesting. It is somewhat similar to Facebook in that regard because you have your personal profile and then you have your company pages. I have mainly been using my personal profile to post on, but I also sometimes post to my company pages. When it comes to ranking power, I do not see any difference. They rank just as well as each other. When it comes to LinkedIn, you can post normal text posts, like status updates, and then you can also post long-form articles. But the thing with LinkedIn articles is that they were abused by spam SEOs for affiliate purposes, and they ranked extremely well. They do still rank extremely well if you can get them to index. But I find that today, no matter what I do, I cannot get these LinkedIn articles to index. I do not know if it is me. I have tried from my personal profiles and I have tried from my business pages. I cannot get them to index. So I just focus on standard posts.
James Dooley: Do you find that the actual LinkedIn statuses can rank just as well?
Jesper Nissen: Yes, just as well. I do not see them ranking as well as LinkedIn Pulse articles, but almost as well. That is the thing with LinkedIn Pulse. I do not know if it was the URL structure in LinkedIn, but they ranked too well. It is kind of like Medium articles also. If you can get a Medium article to index now, it will rank extremely well. Better than X, LinkedIn, Facebook, better than anything. Not as good as YouTube, of course, but it will be up there. It is the same thing with LinkedIn Pulse articles. So it is a little bit annoying that Google changed that, but that is just the nature of the game. What I do now is just post status updates. I start my day by doing two hours of social media posting every morning. Actually, I forgot to mention this in the other three episodes we just did. I am building out my own social media poster called Somi Poster, or as my developer calls it, Some Poster, but Somi Poster. I start in my dashboard, posting out to my 15 social media accounts, LinkedIn included. For LinkedIn, there is one thing that you need to do and one thing that you must not do. What you need to do is make sure the first seven to 12 words in your post are the SEO title. So when Google crawls, discovers and indexes your post, this will be what you rank for. What you must not do is use hashtags. I use hashtags in X and sometimes also Facebook as a means to get discovered by new people. People actually use X and Facebook like search engines. I do not know why, and I do not use it myself that way, but people search for SEO, roofers, plumbers, and that is where the hashtags come up. What I see is that Facebook, X and LinkedIn use these hashtags to put you in that category of business when it comes to indexing and ranking. The unfortunate thing is that Google is actually using these hashtags as the SEO title. So you might have written a LinkedIn post about how to do local SEO for plumbers in London, or something like that. Perfect title, and you thought it ranks in Google. But then you use a hashtag, and this hashtag will be what gets indexed as the SEO title. So your LinkedIn post will never rank for the keywords you expected. It will index, and you will be able to find it, but just not for the keywords you thought.
James Dooley: Just so I am getting this right and the listeners are getting this right, are you saying do not use hashtags in the first seven to 12 words, or nowhere on the status at all?
Jesper Nissen: Do not use them at all. Every time I forget and use hashtags, because I take the same post and the same text and post it to 15 profiles, if I forget to remove them in LinkedIn, the posts just do not rank. It does not matter if the hashtags are at the beginning or the end. Google sees them, detects these hashtags and then uses them as the keywords.
James Dooley: So just on that, on the other platforms, we have got other videos. Anyone listening, make sure you check out the links in the description with regard to how to rank tweets in Google, how to rank Instagram posts in Google, and how to rank Facebook posts in Google. On the other platforms, are you saying that hashtags are fine? It is only on LinkedIn that it does not work.
Jesper Nissen: Hashtags on the other platforms are fine. I find that when you use the same hashtags consistently, for example, in almost all of my posts I type hashtag parasite SEO, hashtag Jesper Nissen SEO or hashtag Jesper Nissen, then I connect the idea of parasite SEO with my brand name. I teach the X algorithm that this is what I know about. I know about parasite SEO. What I have begun to see now is that whenever I post about parasite SEO, and it is not every day I post about it, but whenever I do post about it, I get much more likes, more interaction and more traction inside X, because I keep using the same hashtag consistently. But it does not improve or negatively affect the ranking in Google Search on those platforms. It does in LinkedIn, so that is just something to keep in mind.
James Dooley: With regard to LinkedIn, are you grabbing the URL and putting it into your indexer for LinkedIn to rank in Google?
Jesper Nissen: Yes. LinkedIn is a little bit annoying that way. What I do is post, then there are the three dots in the upper right corner, and then you copy link to post. What you need to do is paste that URL into the browser and then wait a second or two until it redirects to the final URL. Then you can grab that. That is just something people sometimes miss. If they do not know it, they just grab the first URL, but you need to wait until it redirects. The good thing about LinkedIn is that it has a keyword-rich URL, and it will also use the first seven to 12 keywords. I think that is what makes LinkedIn so strong when it comes to ranking because it has this keyword-rich URL. It also means that LinkedIn is being cited in AI overviews more frequently than X and Facebook, I think. You more often see LinkedIn posts being cited in AI overviews. I am not talking about LinkedIn Pulse articles. I am talking about status updates.
James Dooley: When you write a LinkedIn status, does the number of likes or comments influence how well the LinkedIn post actually ranks or not?
Jesper Nissen: No, it does not matter at all. I have made many tests about this, and it does not matter at all. LinkedIn is also a little bit more boring, kind of like Instagram. You do not get that many likes, shares or comments, and still they rank.
James Dooley: Jesper Nissen, it has been an absolute pleasure. We hope you liked the video on how to rank LinkedIn statuses in Google Search.
Creators & Guests
Host
James Dooley is the founder of FatRank which is a UK lead generation company. James Dooley is the current CEO of FatRank that provides high-quality leads for UK business owners.
Guest
Jesper Nissen is the founder of SEO Danmark APS, based in Aalborg. He build SaaS tools that solve real SEO problems. YACSS for backlinks, schemawriter.ai for AI-powered schema markup, primeindexer…