LinkedIn Improves Site Search
By Paul Thomson :: 1:56 PM
LinkedIn today announced that it will be introducing a number of improvements to its site search features that will bring it in line with what users expect, as search capabilities improve across the web and social media sites.
The new features include functionality already common across the web, like auto-complete, save-able search queries and suggested search words, and also some more robust updates like an algorithm that learns your queries over time and helps to better understand what (and who) you are looking for.
LinkedIn’s search updates come on the heels of recent large-scale changes by Facebook when it introduced its Graph Search capability earlier this year. Heavy users of social media sites expect search functions to be relatively similar across the networks, and this update from LinkedIn is timely in that it brings the business social network up to the level of Facebook, Twitter and Google.
Jonathan Podemsky outlined the thinking behind some of the more robust search enhancements on LinkedIn’s blog earlier today. “LinkedIn’s search efforts are founded on the ability to take into account who you are, who you know, and what your network is doing to help you find what you’re looking for,” he wrote. “We’ll continue iterating on this with better ways to surface new kinds of content across Linkedin as well as more personalized results.”
Below, screen shots from LinkedIn’s presentation on the new search features:
Auto-complete queries and suggested search terms.
Restrict the networks and parts of LinkedIn that you search.
Filters allow for easier advanced searches
Automated alerts will save search queries and e-mail results when new matches appear