How to Scrape LinkedIn Data — Octo Browser
Palina Zabela
Content Manager, Octo Browser
LinkedIn has over 1.1 billion registered users, and 134.5 million of them log in every day. Recruiters can find potential job candidates here, and sales managers can find their leads. But manually searching for contacts is time-consuming and inefficient; it's much easier to do it automatically using scrapers. What is LinkedIn scraping? Is it legal? What tools can be used for automation and protection against bans? And how can you write your own scraping code? You will find all the answers below.
Contents
What is LinkedIn Scraping
In a nutshell, scraping is a method of quickly collecting online data using scripts. It plays an important role in working with LinkedIn because it helps:
- search for job openings;
- search for candidates;
- analyze competitors;
- generate leads.
LinkedIn allows scraping public accounts only. It also sets API request limits and may block accounts that access the server too often or show other suspicious activity. That’s why it’s crucial to be cautious while performing scraping on this platform: don’t collect confidential data and don’t overload the website’s servers.
How to Automate LinkedIn Scraping
To speed up LinkedIn data scraping, you can use:
- Paid no-code services, suitable for those who don’t know how to code. We’ll go over popular no-code LinkedIn scraping tools below.
- Frameworks. Tools like Scrapy, Selenium, Apify SDK allow you to collect, process, and save data in the desired format.
- Bots. They can scrape LinkedIn and structure the collected information. You can find ready-made scraping solutions written in JavaScript, Python, Go, and PHP, or you can create your own.
- Browser automation frameworks and libraries. Libraries like Beautiful Soup, Requests, lxml, Cheerio, Puppeteer, and others can automate specific stages of LinkedIn scraping, including LinkedIn scraping with the help of an anti-detect browser for multi-accounting.
5 Best LinkedIn Scraping Services
Here are the best popular no-code scraping tools for collecting LinkedIn data:
Evaboot
Evaboot is a Chrome extension for web scraping via LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It collects the following data into a CSV file:
- names;
- job titles and duration positions were held;
- personal and company page URLs;
- emails;
- company names;
- websites;
- office locations;
- industries;
- number of employees.
Evaboot also checks email validity, cleans data (e.g., removes emojis), and checks whether the found LinkedIn profiles match the set search filters.
Evaboot’s pricing starts at $9/month. For this price, you get 100 credits and can export 50 emails per month. Data cleaning and LinkedIn account filtering are available with 1,500 credits for $49.
Phantombuster
Phantombuster is an AI-based service that scrapes data from platforms like LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, Slack, and Facebook for lead generation. It can:
- scrape personal and company profiles;
- filter found accounts and job listings;
- sync data with CRM using HubSpot integration;
- export LinkedIn search results;
- monitor updates for potential leads like job changes and interactions with other accounts;
- send personalized messages automatically.
Phantombuster offers a free trial for 2 hours and 1,000 AI requests. The starter subscription is €69/month for 10 hours of use and 10,000 credits. Paid subscriptions include community access, unlimited LinkedIn data export, and priority support.
Waalaxy
Waalaxy is an AI-based service for automatic scraping and lead generation on LinkedIn. It can:
- collect data on potential leads, including work emails;
- export data to CRM;
- integrate with Recruiter and Sales Navigator;
- auto-send LinkedIn connection requests;
- send messages on LinkedIn and via email;
- manage a team.
The free Waalaxy trial gives 25 email search credits and 80 LinkedIn invite credits. Teamwork and CRM syncing are available on paid subscriptions starting at €19/month.
Apollo
Apollo is a Chrome browser extension for LinkedIn scraping. It uses neural networks to automate and optimize lead generation. Apollo.io can:
- collect and enrich data from LinkedIn, Gmail, Google Calendar, and corporate websites;
- filter collected information;
- export data to CRM;
- send and respond to messages;
- optimize meeting schedules, prepare for them, and create follow-ups;
- provide sales performance tips.
The trial version of Apollo.io gives you 100 credits per month. Basic and higher-tier users can enrich data, apply advanced LinkedIn filters, and get priority support. Subscriptions start at $59 for 5,000 requests.
La Growth Machine
La Growth Machine is a platform for automating sales on LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and by email. Its main features include:
- finding accounts, phone numbers, and emails;
- exporting leads from LinkedIn Sales Navigator to CSV;
- sending messages on LinkedIn and X (Twitter);
- gauging lead interest;
- integrating with HubSpot and other CRMs;
- campaign performance analytics;
- teamwork.
La Growth Machine is free for the first two weeks. After that, subscriptions start at €60/month. To collect emails and make API requests to LinkedIn, you will need to pay €120. CRM integration also requires the €120 subscription.
How to Bypass LinkedIn’s Anti-Scraping Protection
To protect its users from spam and fraud, LinkedIn sets limits on the number of invitations and messages a single account can send. Additionally, the anti-fraud system blocks accounts that access the server too frequently. However, you can bypass LinkedIn’s protection measures by following expert recommendations below:
Create multiple virtual profiles
To reduce the risk of being blocked, you can scrape LinkedIn not from a single, but from multiple accounts. This way, you can distribute the load, and each account will attract less suspicion. Even if one of them gets banned by the network, you’ll still have access to the others.
According to LinkedIn’s rules, one person is allowed only one account. Therefore, the accounts should be registered under different identities. To prevent LinkedIn from linking the pages, use an anti-detect browser for multi-accounting like Octo. Octo Browser allows you to create multiple profiles with different digital fingerprints. Each one will appear to LinkedIn as a separate device, as the anti-detect browser spoofs fingerprints at the browser kernel level. This significantly reduces the risk of bans due to multi-accounting.
According to LinkedIn’s rules, one person is allowed only one account. Therefore, the accounts should be registered under different identities. To prevent LinkedIn from linking the pages, use an anti-detect browser for multi-accounting like Octo. Octo Browser allows you to create multiple profiles with different digital fingerprints. Each one will appear to LinkedIn as a separate device, as the anti-detect browser spoofs fingerprints at the browser kernel level. This significantly reduces the risk of bans due to multi-accounting.
Connect proxies
Although anti-detect browsers spoof location, time zone, and languages, LinkedIn can still link accounts using IP addresses. Therefore, each profile should be connected to a proxy with a unique IP address. You can purchase residential proxies from verified providers and connect them to profiles directly within Octo Browser.
Prepare your profiles
To prevent newly created anti-detect browser profiles from raising red flags with LinkedIn’s anti-fraud systems, you need to properly prepare them. To do this, collect cookies from websites popular in the selected region. Octo Browser offers its own built-in Cookie Robot to automate this process. Simply give it a list of links to popular online resources, and it will visit them and collect cookies without taking other actions.
Register multiple LinkedIn accounts
After preparing the profiles, you can register LinkedIn accounts. For this, you’ll need unique email addresses and identity verification documents. Read our article to learn how to create multiple Gmail accounts.
Complete the accounts
The more information a LinkedIn account contains, the more trustworthy it appears. Ideally, fill out all the fields:
- Avatar. Upload a professional portrait with a neutral background.
- Headline. Briefly describe whose account it is and what the person does.
- CV. Create a PDF file with a detailed description of experience and key skills.
- Experience and Education. Fill these fields using the CV data.
- Recommendations. Get endorsements from acquaintances. You can write a template yourself and attach it to the LinkedIn recommendation request, so the person won’t have to put in much effort.
Send requests at a reasonable rate
Too frequent server requests can trigger LinkedIn’s anti-fraud system. To protect itself against bots, DDoS attacks, and scrapers, the platform is likely to automatically block the account and the associated IP address. To prevent this, it’s best to send requests at the speed of an average user.
Subscribe to LinkedIn Premium
LinkedIn sales experts say that the platform has more trust in users with a paid subscription. Premium subscriptions allow you to send more invitations and messages, and provide additional features like CRM integration and advanced filters. Paid accounts are less likely to be banned than regular ones. Learn more about getting LinkedIn Premium in our article.
How to Scrape Public LinkedIn Accounts
As we’ve mentioned earlier, you can use various tools to scrape LinkedIn. Therefore, we’ve compiled general guidelines for collecting data from public pages.
Step 1: Define your goals. Go to any public LinkedIn account and analyze what information is available. Make a list of data categories you want to extract. For example, this could be the name, company name, and position.
Step 2: Conduct manual preliminary research. Go to a public LinkedIn account, right-click and select Inspect or Inspect Element to open developer tools. In the Elements tab, locate the desired info blocks, study their paths (XPath), as well as attributes, tags, and selectors. Note that some selectors (like element class names) on many popular sites can change dynamically. Therefore, we don’t recommend using such selectors when writing automation scripts.
Step 3: Write the code. Use browser automation libraries like Selenium, Puppeteer, or Playwright. Follow this algorithm:
Step 1: Define your goals. Go to any public LinkedIn account and analyze what information is available. Make a list of data categories you want to extract. For example, this could be the name, company name, and position.
Step 2: Conduct manual preliminary research. Go to a public LinkedIn account, right-click and select Inspect or Inspect Element to open developer tools. In the Elements tab, locate the desired info blocks, study their paths (XPath), as well as attributes, tags, and selectors. Note that some selectors (like element class names) on many popular sites can change dynamically. Therefore, we don’t recommend using such selectors when writing automation scripts.
Step 3: Write the code. Use browser automation libraries like Selenium, Puppeteer, or Playwright. Follow this algorithm:
- Launch an anti-detect browser profile via API with debug_port open.
- Connect to the running profile using the automation library’s methods.
- Open the public profile from which you want to collect data using the automation library’s methods.
- Access the element selectors and extract the required information. Analyze it.
- Structure the information and choose a storage method (spreadsheets, databases, JSON files).
How to Scrape LinkedIn Company Pages
All company pages on LinkedIn are public. Therefore, collecting information from them does not risk violating confidentiality of sensitive data.
Step 1: Analyze the page structure. Company profiles on LinkedIn include sections such as About, Posts, Jobs, Life, People. Information about the industry, company size, headquarters address, etc. can be found in the first tab.
Step 2: Find out where the data is stored. Go to the company’s LinkedIn page, right-click on the element with the required data, and select Inspect or Inspect Element from the dropdown menu. If you don’t see all the data you need, explore the HTML structure of individual sections. Look for tags and attributes containing the required data.
Step 3: Write a script. The algorithm’s logic will be the same as when scraping public accounts:
Step 1: Analyze the page structure. Company profiles on LinkedIn include sections such as About, Posts, Jobs, Life, People. Information about the industry, company size, headquarters address, etc. can be found in the first tab.
Step 2: Find out where the data is stored. Go to the company’s LinkedIn page, right-click on the element with the required data, and select Inspect or Inspect Element from the dropdown menu. If you don’t see all the data you need, explore the HTML structure of individual sections. Look for tags and attributes containing the required data.
Step 3: Write a script. The algorithm’s logic will be the same as when scraping public accounts:
- Launch an anti-detect browser profile via API with debug_port open.
- Connect to it using automation framework/library methods.
- Open the company page whose data you want to scrape using the library using automation framework/library methods.
- Access selectors of the elements containing the required data and extract them. Analyze the obtained data.
- Structure the information and choose a storage format (spreadsheets, databases, JSON files).
Conclusion
LinkedIn scraping is the automated data collection from the platform. Scraping is usually performed with scripts, along with additional tools to prevent blocks: proxies to change IP addresses, an anti-detect browser to spoof fingerprints, and bots to bypass CAPTCHAs. As a result, you get structured data about people, vacancies, and companies, and can search for jobs, candidates, and sales leads faster and more efficiently.
FAQ
What is a LinkedIn scraper?
A LinkedIn scraper is software for collecting data from the social media platform, which speeds up the process and structures the received information. It can be a bot, script, or ready-made service adapted for beginners with no knowledge of coding.
Is it legal to scrape LinkedIn?
Yes, you may scrape public LinkedIn pages, such as open personal accounts, company profiles, and job listings. However, for the scraping to be ethical, it is essential to maintain the confidentiality of personal data and avoid overloading LinkedIn’s servers with overly frequent requests.
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