LinkedIn People Directory: a Complete Overview [2024]

Sasha Bouloudnine
July 24, 2024

9 min read
1 billion (!!) members worldwide, 200 countries: LinkedIn is the most massive professional network worldwide, and a fantastic source of B2B leads.
linkedin 1 billion members - image9.png

But where can we find an ordered, reliable and searchable LinkedIn people directory?

In this article, we will see what a LinkedIn people directory is, and we will cover 4 types of LinkedIn B2B databases.

A complete LinkedIn people directory overview.

What is a LinkedIn People Directory?

A LinkedIn People Directory is a website that shows LinkedIn profiles in ABC order.

linkedin people directory - image19.png

It can be browsed and searched based on various criteria such as:

  1. Alphabetical order
  2. Location
  3. Industry
  4. Job title
  5. First/Last name

And for each profile page, you will find some personal attributes:

  1. LinkedIn URL
  2. Name of the person
  3. Job Title
  4. Location
linkedin profile page - image5.png

But not all LinkedIn people directories are the same. Some are alphabetically ordered, some allow users to search by location or name, others provide contact informations.

We will see in this article 4 types of LinkedIn People Directory:

  1. Official LinkedIn People Directory
  2. LinkedIn People Search Tool
  3. Third-Party LinkedIn People Directory
  4. LinkedIn Lookup

Official LinkedIn People Directory

An A-Z standard directory

LinkedIn provides an official LinkedIn People Directory.

linkedin people directory - image19.png

It is a LinkedIn page with lists of LinkedIn profiles sorted in ABC order.

On the top of the page, you have the alphabet letters. If you click on a letter, you will find all the LinkedIn profiles whose name begins with that letter.

And for each profile:

  1. Full name
  2. LinkedIn URL

One country, one directory

The data is split per country i.e. you have one LinkedIn People Directory per LinkedIn subdomain.

Here is an exhaustive list of all the 67 LinkedIn people directories available around the world, one per country.

f
https://www.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ae.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ap.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ar.linkedin.com/directory/people https://at.linkedin.com/directory/people https://au.linkedin.com/directory/people https://be.linkedin.com/directory/people https://br.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ca.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ch.linkedin.com/directory/people https://co.linkedin.com/directory/people https://cy.linkedin.com/directory/people https://cz.linkedin.com/directory/people https://de.linkedin.com/directory/people https://dk.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ec.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ee.linkedin.com/directory/people https://es.linkedin.com/directory/people https://fi.linkedin.com/directory/people https://fr.linkedin.com/directory/people https://gb.linkedin.com/directory/people https://gr.linkedin.com/directory/people https://gw.linkedin.com/directory/people https://hk.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ib.linkedin.com/directory/people https://id.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ie.linkedin.com/directory/people https://il.linkedin.com/directory/people https://in.linkedin.com/directory/people https://iq.linkedin.com/directory/people https://is.linkedin.com/directory/people https://it.linkedin.com/directory/people https://jp.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ke.linkedin.com/directory/people https://kr.linkedin.com/directory/people https://lk.linkedin.com/directory/people https://lu.linkedin.com/directory/people https://me.linkedin.com/directory/people https://mx.linkedin.com/directory/people https://nc.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ng.linkedin.com/directory/people https://nl.linkedin.com/directory/people https://no.linkedin.com/directory/people https://nr.linkedin.com/directory/people https://nt.linkedin.com/directory/people https://nz.linkedin.com/directory/people https://pl.linkedin.com/directory/people https://pt.linkedin.com/directory/people https://qa.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ro.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ru.linkedin.com/directory/people https://rw.linkedin.com/directory/people https://sa.linkedin.com/directory/people https://se.linkedin.com/directory/people https://sg.linkedin.com/directory/people https://si.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ta.linkedin.com/directory/people https://td.linkedin.com/directory/people https://tm.linkedin.com/directory/people https://tn.linkedin.com/directory/people https://tr.linkedin.com/directory/people https://tv.linkedin.com/directory/people https://tw.linkedin.com/directory/people https://tz.linkedin.com/directory/people https://uk.linkedin.com/directory/people https://ws.linkedin.com/directory/people https://za.linkedin.com/directory/people
If you want to know which domain is referring to which country, check the related page: Country code top-level domain - Wikipedia.

Last thing: be careful, depending on your personal country location, you may have no access to certain country linkedin people directories.

linkedin people directory not accessible - image2.png

Try to target the LinkedIn people directory of the country you’re living in.

SEO first

But why has LinkedIn undisclosed the exhaustive list of all the members of the social media?

The directory is scrapped by third-party vendors, who compete with the world's largest professional social platform.

The reason however is simple.

LinkedIn actually built this directory to let Google (and other search engines) browse across pages and index the profiles pages.
A kind of gigantic sitemap of profiles.
If you type $name + linkedin on Google you will see the LinkedIn profile appear in the search results.
find linkedin people using google search - image17.png

This is exactly what LinkedIn wanted to achieve.

It brings organic visitors and visibility to the professional social network. Well done.

Jobs and companies equivalents

LinkedIn has not stopped with people.

You have similar alphabetical directories for:

  1. Jobs
  2. Companies

For jobs, a list of normalized jobs available on LinkedIn.

f
https://www.linkedin.com/directory/jobs
linkedin jobs directory - image8.png

For companies, the list of all companies registered for a given subdomain.

f
https://linkedin.com/directory/companies
linkedin company directory - image21.png

However, this official LinkedIn People Directory is limited: it is not searchable.

What if you want to search profiles per location, per name, per job title?

LinkedIn People Search Tool

The LinkedIn People Search Tool is a built-in feature that enables all LinkedIn users to search for members within the LinkedIn people database.

To access it:

  1. Log in to LinkedIn.
  2. Visit the URL:
    https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/
    .

About 1 billion people are accessible from here.

linkedin search people tool - image13.png

It’s free-to-use, searchable, and always up-to-date. If you need to use a LinkedIn people directory, always use the LinkedIn people search tool first.

Filters-friendly

Compared to the Official LinkedIn People Directory, the LinkedIn People Search Tool is searchable.

You can filter people from LinkedIn per:

  1. Current company
  2. Connections level
  3. Job title
  4. Industry

etc.

Click on All filters to get access to all the available people filters.
all filters linkedin people search - image11.png

Search per location

You can filter LinkedIn members per location.

  1. Click on All filters.
  2. Click on + Add a location.
  3. Choose the location you want to find people from.
For instance, if you want to search people from California, pick California, United States as location.
linkedin search people filter per location california - image14.png

Search per name

You can also search people by specifying the first name and the last name.

  1. Click on All filters.
  2. Scroll to the bottom.
  3. Fill in the First name and Last name fields.
linkedin people search filters first name last name - image3.png

It's useful if you're looking for someone in particular.

Boolean operators

Endly, you can use boolean operators to perform advanced searches that match several criteria.

Here are the 4 boolean operators:

  1. OR
  2. AND
  3. NOT
  4. Quotes

For instance, if you type in the search bar:

f
"amazon" AND ("yale" OR "mit") AND NOT "harvard"

You will find LinkedIn members that have in their profile:

  1. Working at amazon
  2. Studied in yale OR mit
  3. Have NOT studied in harvard
linkedin search boolean operators example - image12.png

Powerful!

Export to a CSV

And what if you want to export all profiles to a structured CSV file?

There is no LinkedIn built-in feature.

But you can use our powerful Sales Navigator Leads Scraper.
sales navigator leads scraper lobstr.io product page - image16.png

To achieve this:

  1. Subscribe to a Sales Navigator LinkedIn premium account.
  2. Create a free lobstr.io account.
  3. Do a Leads research on Sales Navigator search.
  4. Copy the search URL.
  5. Create a Sales Navigator Leads Scraper on lobstr.io.
  6. Export data.

You will scrape all accessible leads from your Sales Navigator specific search — and export all data to a properly formatted CSV file.

Included verified professional email addresses.

export sales nav leads to a csv lobstr.io - image15.png

With the free plan, go get 300 emails for free.

You can then export to your CRM or do some LinkedIn outreach.

However, if both mentioned Linkedin people directories are interesting, both will require you to be logged in on LinkedIn.

What if you want to browse LinkedIn profiles without being logged in?

Let’s deep dive in.

Third-Party LinkedIn People Directory

What is a third-party LinkedIn people directory?

A third-party company has collected and stored all profiles from LinkedIn to build a B2B database.

apollo home page - image20.png

But why use a third-party directory instead of the LinkedIn people directory?

Why use a third-party LinkedIn people directory?

First, you don’t have to create a LinkedIn account or to be logged in on LinkedIn.

If you value privacy — it’s a legit reason — you are not alone.

Second, you are not bound to LinkedIn internal limitations.

It is not explicitly mentioned by LinkedIn, but your navigation is stopped once you reach the commercial use limit.

linkedin commercial use limit - image6.png

In practice, with a free LinkedIn account you can do max:

  1. 80 LinkedIn Profile Visits / Day
  2. 300 LinkedIn Searches / Month

Using a third-party LinkedIn directory is a direct way to bypass these boring limitations.

Last but not least, a third-party LinkedIn people directory is usually enriched with additional relevant information:

  1. Professional email addresses
  2. Social networks
  3. Phone numbers
  4. Funding events
  5. Revenues
zoominfo employee directory 2 - image18.png

You can target the leads you do need more efficiently.

However, the data is usually slightly outdated and rarely exhaustive.

Let’s see now the best third-party LinkedIn people directory.

3 best third-party LinkedIn people directories

We have identified 3 top-tier third-party LinkedIn people directories:

  1. Google
  2. ZoomInfo
  3. Apollo

Google

We have mentioned it above: LinkedIn does allow Google to collect and index all the LinkedIn profiles page in order to gain visibility on Google Search.

Google is thus a free-to-use and exhaustive third-party LinkedIn people directory.

You don’t need to login, and you can use Google to find profiles

  1. Per industry
  2. Per job title
  3. Per name

If you use the search engine properly, you can even collect publicly available email addresses.

use google to find linkedin profiles + emails - image7.png

But the search engine is limited to keywords research, and you cannot access more than 300 results per research.

ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo the world most-reknown third-party LinkedIn people directory and an solid employee directory.

You can search people:

  1. Per location
  2. Per company
  3. Per department

Above all, you get access to datasets enriched with actionable contact info — phone, email.

zoominfo linkedin employee directory - image10.png

But it's expensive.

ZoomInfo pricing starts at around $200 per month and increases to over $7,000 per month depending your contact volume and industry.

Apollo

Apollo is similar to ZoomInfo: an exhaustive third-party LinkedIn people directory, with enriched contact data points.

You get convenient advanced search filters:

  1. Per persona type
  2. Per email status
  3. Per technology
  4. Per funding amounts
apollo people directory - image1.png

The price is OKish, starting at $50 per month for 10,000 email credits.


But what if you simply want to find information regarding 1 LinkedIn profile?

LinkedIn Lookup

You want to find data from one LinkedIn profile, without creating a LinkedIn account and without paying for a third-party people directory?

You can use a LinkedIn people finder tool.

  1. Copy the URL of a LinkedIn profile.
  2. Get access to the data.
linkedin profile viewer linkedingeniee - image4.png

Conclusion

LinkedIn is the world's most massive B2B database, with 1 billion members in 200 countries.

If you want to get leads, hire or expand your network size, you can use a LinkedIn People Directory to quickly access large lists of LinkedIn profiles.

Use LinkedIn first: it’s free, exhaustive and always up-to-date.

Export your LinkedIn leads enriched with email addresses to a CSV file with our Sales Navigator Leads Scraper, or use third-party tools.

Choose what suits you best!

1516989175726.jpegSasha Bouloudnine

Co-founder @ lobstr.io since 2019. Genuine data avid and lowercase aesthetic observer. Ensure you get the hot data you need.

Related Articles

Related Squids