I know that LinkedIn Company Profiles is in beta but seriously, they should have fine-tuned it a bit more before announcing it to the world.

In a March 20th announcement, LinkedIn informed us that we would now be able to see over 160,000 company profiles in the same manner that you can see individual profiles. These include Fortune 500 companies such as eBay to philanthropic organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

My initial thoughts were, “This is pretty cool,” and “It’s about time!” So I rushed off to see if our own company, SearchRank was included in the mix. It was not. What’s up with that?

At first my ego was struck. Why would they not have a profile for a company that has been around since 1997, not to mention that I myself have been a member of LinkedIn for some time and have always been associated with SearchRank?

Then I began to search for other “small” SEM firms that I know of. I found these – Elixir Systems, SEOmoz, and Pole Position Marketing. Now I’m jealous, even envious. Could it be the fact that I am currently the only one from our company that is on LinkedIn? Maybe I should write them and see if I can get an answers. So I did.

They responded within a couple of days with the following message:

Hi David,

Please send us the following information about the Company: Name, Industry, description, company size, URL, Type and we will add it to the directory next time we do an update.

Thank you,
Patrick B.
Customer Support Agent

I did provide them the information they were requesting right away. This is what they sent back today:

Dear David,

My apologies, at this time we are unable to add or modify companies; however, we are building functionality in the near future that would allow users to add their companies. We appreciate the time you have taken to inquire about this new feature.

Thank you,
Patrick B.
Customer Support Agent

So, they ask me to submit my information and then essentially tell me it was a waste of time? You are not winning any points with me, LinkedIn.

There are additional flaws in the new feature. Still jealous and envious that several of my colleagues and friends have company profiles, I began to look more closely at this new feature.

Matt Bailey for example has a link to his company, SiteLogic. However, when you click on the link, it takes you to a profile page for a company called Sitel.

Another example is Jennifer Laycock who has a link to Search Engine Guide of which when you click on it you are taken to a profile page for what looks like Search Engine Optimization, Inc. She also has a link to The Lactivisit, a blog she owns. It takes you to a company profile for The Limited.

It looks like LinkedIn has a lot of bugs to work out. In the meantime, I think the feature is pretty lame, especially seeing that they will not list a profile for my company. 🙁