LinkedIn Pulse Backlinks: Do Published Articles Actually Help?

Par Marcus Hale · Mis à jour le 2026-11-08

This site earns a commission if you sign up through its links (Hitworkers affiliate program). Code CHICO5 gives you +5% credits and reduces the commission from 12% to 7% on your account.

If you've been pasting your site into LinkedIn articles hoping for a ranking boost, I want to save you some disappointment up front. LinkedIn marks outbound links in articles as nofollow, which means Google treats them as a hint, not a vote. That doesn't make them worthless. It just means you need to be clear about what job you're asking them to do.

Are LinkedIn Pulse links nofollow?

Yes. LinkedIn applies rel="nofollow" to external links placed inside published articles. This has been the case for a long time, and it's consistent with how most large social and publishing platforms handle outbound links in user-generated content.

A nofollow attribute tells search engines not to pass link equity through that specific link. Google's own guidance on spam policies treats nofollow as a signal it may or may not follow when crawling, but it doesn't credit the destination site with authority the way a standard followed link does. So if your entire plan was "publish on LinkedIn, watch rankings climb," that plan has a gap in it.

So why would anyone pay for LinkedIn article publishing at all?

Because the value isn't in the link itself, it's in everything around the link. A LinkedIn article with real engagement puts your brand name, your angle, and your URL in front of a professional audience that doesn't live on forums or Reddit. Some of those readers click through. A smaller number might reference you later on a blog or a site that does pass link equity, which is sometimes called earning a brand mention rather than a direct backlink.

That's the honest framing. It's a visibility and distribution channel that happens to include a link, not a link building channel that happens to be on LinkedIn.

What does the LIN template actually buy, task by task?

On the Hitworkers dashboard, the template I looked at for this is coded LIN: a worker publishes a LinkedIn article, priced at roughly $0.50 per 10 minutes of worker time in the campaign builder. That price sits in the same family as other templates on the same dashboard, like GEO (Google search tasks at $0.20 / 10 min) or TRN (YouTube watch and subscribe at $0.30 / 10 min), so it's worth comparing the mechanics side by side.

Notice that LIN isn't priced or positioned as a link building template at all. It's grouped with watch-and-engage style tasks. That lines up with what the nofollow attribute already tells you: you're paying for article distribution and a human publishing it, not for SEO authority transfer.

If what you actually want is a link that search engines can credit, the forum link building service template (FOR) is the one built for that job, with proof requirements like the posted URL, login, and a screenshot.

Does a LinkedIn article link help indirectly, even if it's nofollow?

It can, mostly through exposure rather than crawl signals. A well-written article on a topic you rank for can drive direct clicks from LinkedIn's feed and search, put your brand name in front of people who later search for you by name, and occasionally get cited by someone who does run a followed-link blog.

None of that is guaranteed, and none of it shows up in a backlink checker the way a forum backlink does. I'd treat LinkedIn publishing as a branding line item in a bigger plan, not a line item you track for domain authority.

How does this compare to forum backlinks or niche edits?

Forum backlinks and niche edits are built to be crawled and counted; LinkedIn article links are built to be read and clicked. They're solving different problems, and mixing them up is where people waste money.

If your goal is rankings, the comparisons that matter are forum links versus guest posts, or forum links versus niche edits, not LinkedIn versus forum links. I've broken those down separately: see forum backlinks vs guest posts and forum backlinks vs niche edits for how each one behaves on real sites.

Is paying for LinkedIn article publishing safe?

The nofollow attribute itself keeps you clear of most direct Google penalty risk, since you're not manufacturing followed links at scale. The bigger risk is wasting budget expecting an SEO result that nofollow links structurally can't deliver.

If you're also running followed-link campaigns on forums, it's worth reading up on what Google actually penalizes versus what's just noise. I cover that in are forum backlinks safe.

What about the affiliate code and commission, to be transparent about it?

I get a commission if you sign up through my links on this site, generally 12% on what the advertiser spends, paid out once their tasks are approved. There's also a promo code, CHICO5, which gives you an extra 5% in credits on your payments. I want to be straight with you: if you use that code, my commission on your account drops to 7% instead of 12%. I still mention it because the 5% credit bump benefits you directly, and I'd rather you know the tradeoff than not.

Should you run a LIN campaign at all?

If you want brand visibility, a human-written article on your topic, and some referral traffic from a professional audience, a LIN-style task can do that reasonably cheaply. If you want SEO link equity, skip it and put that budget into followed links instead.

For a broader look at where forum links fit into a buying plan, start with the main overview on prices, proof and where to order, or walk through the ordering process step by step in how to order forum backlinks.