Thanks for the breakdown, man. That makes a ton of sense, especially the "I don't know" button flag. I’ve definitely been sending out cold connection requests to local businesses, so it’s highly likely a few of them hit that button and tanked my trust score.
Good to know about the 500+ threshold too, even though I'm at 700 followers, the account still feels relatively new and fragile under the latest 2026 updates.
Quick question regarding the shadowban: If I completely pause the aggressive outbound requests and just focus on ultra-niche content for a while, how long does it usually take for LinkedIn to lift the penalty and restore organic reach? Or is it better to just warm up a fresh account at this point?
Appreciate your help!
Not sure how long it'll take to get out from under the shadowban to be honest. LinkedIn has gotten unpredictable lately.
One point, I'd focus on getting connections, not followers, for the time being. Connections are LinkedIn's core offering, and LinkedIn can tell the difference between someone who's connected to a set network of people, and someone who's sending out connections at random.
This is how I gained connections on LI initially:
1. Select a given industry and identify the main publications within it. If it's electrical engineering, find the electrical engineering publications on LinkedIn, like top five, and then reach out very personally to the top reporters at each publication. Say "hey, I loved your recent article about _____, it was killer, would love to connect with you." Flatter them to within an inch of their lives, make it about them and their journalistic integrity in these dark times or something, this stuff almost never happens and 9/10 will connect with you.
2. The reporters are important connections because they are always interviewing CEOs and various other business leaders. Once you've connected to the main reporters, you'll be second connections with a bunch of CEOs. Find the CEOs of some of the smaller companies in this industry who are connected to the main reporters, reach out and say hey, loved [whatever bullshit is on their profile]. No pitch just connect.
3. Rinse and repeat, making it so you never send a connect request without the person being a second connection. Your network will expand exponentially if you get even one influential person in there and then just keep making friends with their important friends. I knew a sales guy back in the day who's connected with the president of Kosovo or something on LI because he got really into making new telecom connections and it just kinda snowballed.
This might seem unrelated to what you want, but if you create a network that looks real, then you're way less likely to get shadowbanned and you can do whatever you like.
Edit: this whole pattern takes about two weeks to build, but it's worth it.
