Organizations and individuals have several reasons to retrieve professional networks profile data. While pulling profile data may seem nefarious, it has several benefits depending on your goals. You might want to scrape profiles for specific industries to collect a list of sales leads. Corporations can use profile data to develop sales campaigns using email and other advertising methods that target specific individuals within an organization.
In some cases, you may simply want to view a the platform public profile, but the platform blocks unauthenticated requests until you create an account. By requiring users to sign up to the platform, the platform increases its visibility, user count, and marketability. It’s great for the platform, but frustrating for someone who wants to see a single professional profile without authenticating into the platform or creating an account. the platform also shows users a list of accounts that recently viewed a specific profile, so you might want to view an account anonymously. Once you authenticate into the platform, you are no longer anonymous.
!](https://sapiengraph.com/?utm_ Social Network has an API, but it rate limits activity. For the user who just wants to see public profiles, it’s too much work just to view a few user profiles. In addition to platform limitations, you also battle user preferences. the platform collects both private and public data, but it only displays data to the public based on the profile’s settings. For example, a the platform user can choose to hide their profile from search engines so that you can only find it on the the platform platform, which again requires authentication.
When you want to pull professional networks profile data, you should be aware of the data available for public and private profiles. Private data is a list of the professional’s skills, contact information, and user activity for a profile. Public information is very basic with just a profile image and title; little else is divulged to the viewer.
Bypassing professional networks profile viewing limitations
You can bypass professional networks profile limitations without much effort using a mobile browser. the platform displays profiles based on two factors: the IP address of the device and browser cookies. A browser cookie is sent to the browser after it passes the platform’s bot detection validation. Any bots or bot-like activity is blocked, but a standard browser from your smartphone or mobile device will not trigger the platform’s bot detection.
Now, click the link in search to open the professional networks profile in the browser. At this point, you should be blocked by the platform’s authorization wall. The authorization wall asks you to create a the platform account to view the profile, but you can bypass it by first toggling airplane mode on and off. Airplane settings are also found in the smartphone’s settings for both iOS and Android. This action retrieves a new IP address for your device.
For each public profile that you want to view, repeat these steps. Make sure to clear cookies each time and toggle airplane mode for each profile. This method to bypass the platform’s authentication wall will benefit anyone who wants to look up just a few simple profiles, but as you might have already guessed, it’s not a scalable method.