The quick answer: your LinkedIn profile link sits under “Edit public profile & URL” on the right hand side of your profile page on desktop, or under Contact Info on the app. It’s the web address that opens your profile when you click it, and by default it’s a long string of random numbers and letters that you can and should change to something with your actual name in it.
I get asked this constantly, usually by someone panicking five minutes before they send a proposal or update a speaker bio. It sounds like the sort of thing that should take ten seconds. It usually does, once you know where to look. The problem is LinkedIn has buried it in a slightly different place depending on whether you’re on a laptop, a phone browser, or the app, and they’ve moved it around enough times over the years that half the “how to” articles online are describing a screen that doesn’t exist anymore.
On desktop: it’s in “Edit public profile & URL”
This is the version most people mean when they ask the question, so I’ll start here.
- Log in to LinkedIn on a browser, not the app.
- Click your profile picture or go to your own profile page.
- Look to the right of your profile, above the “Resources” section. You’ll see a box that says “Edit public profile & URL” with a pencil icon.
- Click it. This opens a new page showing your public profile preview on the left and your URL on the right, under a heading that says “Edit your custom URL”.
- The URL sits right there, something like linkedin.com/in/lilach-bullock or, if you’ve never touched it, linkedin.com/in/lilach-bullock-8834b12.
That whole page is also where you fix it if it’s wrong, which I’ll get to in a minute. If you want the full walkthrough with screenshots for every version of this screen LinkedIn has shipped, I wrote a longer breakdown in what is a LinkedIn profile URL and how to find yours, because the honest truth is LinkedIn changes this layout roughly once a year and it trips people up every time.
On mobile: it’s under Contact Info, not the share button
This is where most people get stuck, because the mobile app doesn’t have an “Edit public profile” box at all. Here’s the actual path:
- Open the LinkedIn app and tap your profile photo.
- Tap “Edit profile” or, on newer versions, the pencil icon near your name.
- Underneath your name and headline you’ll see “Contact info” as a blue link. Tap it.
- Your profile link is the first thing listed, next to a small link icon. Tap the icon or the link itself and it copies straight to your clipboard.
A lot of people instead hit the “Share profile” button expecting that to give them the same thing. It doesn’t quite. Share profile generates a link that’s fine for sending someone a quick invite to connect, but it’s not the clean public URL you want on a CV, an email signature, or a conference name badge. For anything official, go through Contact Info.
The proposal that went out with the wrong link
A few years ago I had a client, a coaching business in the Midlands, whose founder sent out a sponsorship proposal with her LinkedIn link at the bottom. Except the link she’d copied was an old one from a previous custom URL she’d set two jobs ago, back when her surname was different after a divorce and a rebrand. Whoever clicked it landed on a “this profile isn’t available” page. Not embarrassing on its own, except the deal was worth roughly £12,000 and the sponsor mentioned, weeks later over a coffee, that the dead link was the first thing that made her hesitate. Not the pricing. Not the pitch. A broken link at the bottom of an email.
The fix took ninety seconds once we found the current one. The lesson stuck with me longer: check the actual link works before it goes anywhere near a client, every single time, not just the first time you set it up.
Fix the ugly default URL while you’re there
Here’s the bit almost nobody says out loud: your default LinkedIn URL, the one with the random numbers, makes you look like you’ve never opened your own settings. It’s not a huge deal, but it is the kind of small detail that quietly signals you’re not paying attention to your own presence, and on a platform where first impressions are entirely visual and entirely public, that adds up.
Fixing it is simple:
- Go back to “Edit public profile & URL” on desktop.
- Click the pencil icon next to your current URL.
- Type your custom ending. It has to be between 3 and 100 characters, letters and numbers only, no spaces or symbols.
- If your exact name is taken, add a middle initial, your industry, or a number, but keep it something you’d be happy to see on a business card.
- Click Save.
One catch worth knowing: changing your custom URL breaks any old links that pointed to the previous version. If your old link is already printed on business cards, in your email signature, in a PDF media kit, or linked from your own website, update all of those the same day you make the change, not “at some point.” I’ve seen people change their URL for a rebrand and then spend the next six months with dead links scattered across old guest posts and podcast show notes because they forgot where they’d shared it.
Where this link needs to live once you’ve got it
Finding it is step one. Using it is the part that gets you work. The places I tell every client to put their clean LinkedIn link:
- Email signature, as clickable text, not the raw URL pasted in.
- The “Contact” or “Website” field on your own site’s about page.
- Speaker bios, media kits, and podcast guest one-pagers.
- The bio line of your LinkedIn newsletter, if you run one. If you’re building an audience there, this is exactly the sort of detail covered in how to find and grow your newsletter audience on LinkedIn.
- Proposals and invoices, especially for freelancers and consultants, because people check.
It’s worth saying plainly that the link itself won’t do any work for you if the profile behind it is thin. I’ve had people proudly hand over a beautifully customised URL that leads to a profile with no headline, no summary, and a photo from 2015. The link is the doorway. What you’ve built matters more, which is a big part of why I keep coming back to whether posting on LinkedIn is worth it for business owners in the first place, because the answer changes what that link needs to lead to.
A quick note on public profile settings
Your link only works for other people if your profile is set to public. If you’ve ever restricted your profile visibility, perhaps years ago while job hunting quietly, the link can look correct and still show almost nothing to anyone who isn’t a direct connection. Check this on the same “Edit public profile & URL” page, in the section below your URL where you toggle which sections are visible to the public. It’s easy to forget this setting exists until someone tells you they clicked your link and saw almost a blank page.
None of this is complicated once you’ve done it once. The reason it trips people up is that LinkedIn hides the setting in a spot that isn’t obvious, and most people only go looking for it once, under time pressure, right before they need to send something out. Do it now, while there’s no deadline attached, check the link opens in a private browser tab, and you won’t be the person explaining a dead URL to a client over coffee.
Frequently asked questions
Is my LinkedIn profile link the same as my LinkedIn URL?
Yes, they’re the same thing. “Profile link,” “profile URL,” and “public profile URL” all refer to the same web address, the one that opens your profile page, found under Edit public profile & URL on desktop or Contact Info on the app.
Why does my LinkedIn link show random numbers instead of my name?
That’s the default LinkedIn assigns when you first sign up, before you’ve customised it. Anyone can change it for free through the “Edit public profile & URL” page, as long as their preferred name isn’t already taken by another user.
Can I have more than one LinkedIn profile link?
No, each account only has one custom URL at a time. Changing it replaces the old one immediately, and any links you’d already shared with the previous version will stop working, so update them everywhere you’d posted the old link.
Does my LinkedIn link change if I edit my profile or change jobs?
No, updating your headline, job title, or summary doesn’t touch your URL. The link only changes if you deliberately edit it yourself on the “Edit public profile & URL” page, or in the rare case that LinkedIn suspends and reissues an account.
