When sharing articles on LinkedIn, you may sometimes run into issues where the article URL you’re trying to share doesn’t work properly. Some common problems include the link not opening correctly, the article preview not generating, or LinkedIn giving an error that the URL is invalid.
There are a few potential reasons why a share article URL may not work on LinkedIn:
The website is blocking access from LinkedIn
Some websites actively block crawlers and bots from accessing their content, which can prevent LinkedIn from being able to scrape the article metadata. This means when you share the URL, LinkedIn can’t generate the article preview card. This is commonly done to prevent content scraping as well as reduce server load.
Check if you are able to access the article directly on the website itself. If the website is outright blocking access from LinkedIn’s IP addresses, then there is likely no workaround. The website owner would need to update their blocking rules to allow LinkedIn bots through for the URL to work.
The article is behind a paywall or login wall
If the article you want to share is only accessible to paid subscribers or logged in users, LinkedIn’s crawler won’t be able to access it to generate the article preview. For example, if you want to share an article from The Wall Street Journal or other paid news subscription sites, it likely won’t work as the content is behind a hard paywall.
For these cases, there is unfortunately no way around this other than looking for a similar free article covering the same topic that you can share instead. Or you can discuss the article content itself in your post without sharing the actual link.
The article contains “nofollow” meta tags
Many articles today include nofollow tags in the HTML source to tell crawlers not to follow links on that page. This prevents other sites from scraping the content. If the article you want to share includes nofollow tags, LinkedIn won’t be able to crawl or scrape it, so the preview won’t generate.
Site owners would need to remove the nofollow meta tags to allow LinkedIn and other social media platforms to access the content for sharing purposes. As an individual user though, there is no workaround if the tags are already in place.
The article is newly published
LinkedIn’s crawlers take some time to index and cache new articles across the web. If you are trying to share a very recently published article, chances are LinkedIn hasn’t crawled it yet, so a preview won’t generate.
Try again in a few hours or the next day to see if the URL preview starts working after LinkedIn has had time to properly index the new content. There is no way to speed this up as an end user.
The URL is malformed or redirected
In some cases, the URL you are trying to share is malformed, missing the correct protocol (like HTTP vs HTTPS), or redirects to a different URL. This prevents LinkedIn from being able to crawl the content and generate the preview.
Double check that the URL is entered correctly without any typos. Try accessing it in a browser directly to make sure it resolves properly. Use a link shortener tool to clean up overly long or complex URLs.
The page is mainly multimedia or interactive content
LinkedIn article previews rely on scraping textual content from pages. If the page you are trying to share is mostly multimedia like video, audio, images, or interactive content like quizzes or calculators, there won’t be enough text for LinkedIn to pull in.
For these cases, you’ll likely just need to share the URL as-is without an article preview, or write your own text summary to accompany the link post.
The page is auto-generated or thin content
In a similar vein, if the page you’re sharing is thin content, auto-generated, or otherwise lacks unique text content, LinkedIn’s crawler won’t see enough substantive content to generate a preview. Examples are product pages with just specs and bullet points or auto-generated category pages common on ecommerce sites.
The best solution here is to find a similar resource or article that has more substantive unique text to share instead.
Troubleshooting Steps
If you’re running into issues getting a share URL to work properly on LinkedIn, here are some troubleshooting steps to try:
Confirm the URL is accessible
Copy and paste the URL you are trying to share into a browser to confirm it resolves and you can access the content directly. Any issues on LinkedIn are usually because of upstream problems with the URL itself.
Try sharing a simplified/shortened version of the URL
If the URL contains a bunch of unnecessary tracking parameters or is excessively long, try stripping those out and sharing a clean shortened version, like just the base domain and article slug. URL shorteners like Bitly can help with this.
Share a different URL to the same content
If one particular URL isn’t working, try finding an alternate URL or permalink to the same article content. For example, share the homepage URL rather than the article URL, or vice versa.
Share a PDF or cached version
For paywalled content, look for a PDF version or a cached snapshot on Google Cache or the Internet Archive that you may be able to share instead. The preview likely won’t work but at least the content will be accessible.
Wait and try again later
As mentioned above, give LinkedIn’s crawlers time to index recently published content, which can take hours or days. Try sharing the URL again later.
Contact the website owner
If you manage the site, consider allowing LinkedIn bot access, removing nofollow tags, or adding structured data markup to enable previews. If not, you can alert the webmaster that their site content cannot be shared properly on LinkedIn.
Edit your post to add text summary
If all else fails, remove the URL and manually summarize the article content in your post text instead. You lose the preview but can at least discuss the topic.
Alternative Options
If you simply cannot get a given article URL to generate a proper preview on LinkedIn, here are some alternative options to consider:
Share a PDF version
For downloadable content like reports, whitepapers or ebooks, convert it to a shareable PDF version instead of linking to a web page. The preview won’t work but users can still access the full doc.
Take a screenshot
Take a screenshot of the article headline and featured image and include that as the image for your post. It won’t be clickable but at least gives a visual teaser.
Post a text summary
As mentioned above, simply summarize the key points of the article in your post text. You lose the LinkedIn preview but can get your commentary across.
Post the full text
For short articles you have permission to share, you can copy and paste the full text into your post rather than linking out. Not ideal but lets you share the content.
Link to a related resource
If that particular URL simply won’t work, link out to a similar article, video or website covering the same overall topic that will generate a proper preview.
Best Practices for Sharing Links
To avoid issues getting URL previews to properly generate in LinkedIn posts, keep these best practices in mind:
Test your links before sharing
Always click on your share URLs first to confirm they work, load properly, and are accessible outside paywalls. This saves the embarrassment of sharing a broken link.
Use quality content sources
Stick to sharing high quality content from reputable sites less likely to use heavy paywalls or content blocking. Mainstream news, education and industry sites generally work well.
Shorten lengthy URLs
If the original URL has a lot of unnecessary tracking parameters or is excessively long, use a URL shortener to clean it up before sharing.
Share free over gated content
When possible, link to free resources rather than paywalled content or articles locked behind registration gates, which create preview issues.
Monitor new links over time
For new articles, the preview may not immediately work but begin working after some time as LinkedIn’s crawlers index the new content.
Provide text summaries as a backup
Write a text summary as backup for problematic links. That way if the preview fails, you still communicate the key details.
Conclusion
There are a variety of potential reasons sharing article URLs on LinkedIn can fail, from website restrictions to new content not yet indexed. In some cases there are workarounds like using shortened links or sharing PDF versions. For unresolvable issues, adding text summaries or finding alternate content to link to can ensure you still communicate key information. Testing links before sharing and allowing time for new content to be indexed can prevent many problems. With the right troubleshooting and optimizations, you can minimize issues with sharing URLs on LinkedIn.
Reason | Solution |
---|---|
Website blocks access | No workaround unless website changes policy |
Paywalled content | Share free alternative or write text summary |
Nofollow tags | Site owner must remove nofollow tags |
Newly published | Wait for LinkedIn to index |
Malformed URL | Fix typos or use URL shortener |
Mostly multimedia | Add text summary |
Thin content | Share more substantive alternative |
Troubleshooting Steps
Confirm URL works outside LinkedIn |
Try shortened/simplified URL |
Share alternate URL to same content |
Share PDF or cached version |
Wait and retry sharing later |
Contact site owner |
Manually summarize in post text |
Alternative Options
Share PDF version |
Screenshot headline/image |
Write text summary |
Copy full text |
Link similar working content |
Best Practices
Test links before sharing |
Use quality content sources |
Shorten lengthy URLs |
Prefer free over gated content |
Monitor new links over time |
Provide text summaries |