LinkedInBot (LinkedIn): what it is and how to allow or block it
Updated · checked against the operator's documentation on
LinkedInBot is the fetcher reported to build link previews when someone shares a page on LinkedIn. Its robots.txt token is LinkedInBot.
Facts
- Operator
- robots.txt token
LinkedInBot
- Honors robots.txt?
- Reports differ. Third-party sources disagree on how LinkedInBot treats robots.txt; LinkedIn documents nothing we could find.
- User-agent example
LinkedInBot/1.0 (compatible; Mozilla/5.0; Apache-HttpClient +http://www.linkedin.com)
- Official source
- LinkedIn Help: link previews (does not name LinkedInBot)
- Compared with the source
What it is used for
LinkedIn's help page says previews use the Open Graph tags og:title, og:image, og:description and og:url, and that blocked images may not display. It does not name the bot.
What happens if you block it
Per LinkedIn's help page, a shared link's preview may be missing or lack its image when the image cannot be fetched. That page does not name LinkedInBot, so what a LinkedInBot block does is unconfirmed.
LinkedIn's help page does not name LinkedInBot, so the bot name and the user-agent string come from third-party sources. We did not see it in our logs.
Is it really LinkedInBot?
Anyone can send LinkedInBot as a user agent, and LinkedIn publishes no IP list or reverse-DNS method that we could find, so a log line cannot prove a request is real. Check whether it fetched /robots.txt and whether the address belongs to the operator's network.
- We did not find an IP list or a reverse-DNS method in the official source we compared on 2026-10-25, so the user agent alone cannot show that a request is genuine. Check the operator's page for updates.
- Paste any user agent from your logs into the user-agent lookup, or follow the scripts in Fake Googlebots and PHP scanners.
How to allow or block LinkedInBot
Add one of these groups to the robots.txt at the root of your domain. A group that names the bot overrides a general User-agent: * group.
User-agent: LinkedInBot Allow: /
User-agent: LinkedInBot Disallow: /
Does your site allow LinkedInBot today? The checker evaluates your robots.txt for this and every other bot.Check my site
What we see on our own sites
No request identifying as LinkedInBot has been recorded in the last 30 days, so there is nothing to show yet. We never fill this in with estimates.
Counts come from the websites we operate; they hold no IP addresses or URLs, and a user agent is only a claim. See the bot traffic data and the methodology.
Questions about LinkedInBot
What is LinkedInBot?
The fetcher reported to build link previews when someone shares a page on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's help page says previews use the Open Graph tags og:title, og:image, og:description and og:url, and that blocked images may not display. It does not name the bot.
Is LinkedInBot safe and legitimate?
LinkedInBot is reported to be a social preview fetcher run by LinkedIn, but we could not read an operator page that confirms it. A user-agent string is only a claim, and anyone can send it. We did not find an IP list or reverse-DNS method in the official source we compared on 2026-10-25, so the user agent alone cannot prove a request is real.
Does LinkedInBot obey robots.txt?
Reports differ. Third-party sources disagree on how LinkedInBot treats robots.txt; LinkedIn documents nothing we could find.
How do I block LinkedInBot?
Robots.txt may not stop it. Third-party sources disagree on how LinkedInBot treats robots.txt; LinkedIn documents nothing we could find. If you add a group anyway, use User-agent: LinkedInBot followed by Disallow: /.
Will blocking LinkedInBot hurt my Google rankings or AI visibility?
We cannot say for certain, because the operator documents nothing we could read about this agent. Per LinkedIn's help page, a shared link's preview may be missing or lack its image when the image cannot be fetched. That page does not name LinkedInBot, so what a LinkedInBot block does is unconfirmed.
Related bots
Other Social preview fetchers
- facebookexternalhit MetaMeta's fetcher that loads a page when its link is shared on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger, to build the preview.
- Slackbot SlackSlack's fetcher that expands links posted in channels into previews.
- Twitterbot X CorpThe fetcher X uses to build preview cards for links in posts.
- TelegramBot TelegramReported to be the fetcher that appears in server logs when a link is shared in Telegram.
All Social Preview Fetchers · Bot directory · Which bots to allow or block · robots.txt generator · See a page as a bot