A URL in a text, image, carousel or video post costs about 3%: 1,000 impressions become 970. That's next to nothing. The bigger losses come from the pitch and from the link preview card, covered below.
Studies · 865,980 LinkedIn posts analyzed · 15,719 creators · Jul 2024 to Jul 2026
Do links really hurt LinkedIn reach?
A little. And almost all of it is the link preview.
A URL in your post−3%1,000 impressions become 970
The link preview alone−35%1,000 impressions become 650
Each post compared with the same person's posts without a link, equally salesy.
Naïlé TitahCEO, MagicPost6 min read
First, the four ways to share a link
Same link, four posts. They don't cost the same.
Link preview alone
You paste the link and LinkedIn turns it into a card. The card is the post's only visual.
−35%1,000 impressions become 650
URL in a text post
The link sits in the text, with the preview card removed.
−2%no measurable difference
URL in an image post
The link sits in the text, and an image carries the post. Carousels and videos: −1% each.
−5%1,000 impressions become 950
Link in the first comment
The post says “link in the comments”, and the link sits in the first comment.
−2%vs the URL in the post: no measurable difference
- Impressions
- How many times LinkedIn showed your post in someone's feed.
- Salesy
- How much the post pushes something: an offer, an event, a download. An AI model rated every post with a link and 35% of posts without one.
- No measurable difference
- We see a gap, but it's so small it could be chance. We don't call it an effect.
What you've heard · 1 of 4
“Never put a link in your post.”
−3%
Mostly wrong
Average gap for a URL in a text, image, carousel or video post, vs the same person's posts of the same type without one, equally salesy, July 2024 to July 2026. These two posts are examples.
What you've heard · 2 of 4
“It's the link that costs you reach.”
−10%
Half true
From January to July 2026, posts with a link reached 18% less than the same person's posts without one. But posts with a link almost always promote something, and on average, posts that promote something reach less, link or not. Compare two posts that promote just as much: the link costs 10%.
Why posts with a link reached 18% less, January to July 2026
−18%reach
- The link: −10%What's left when both posts promote just as much.
- The pitch: −8%Posts with a link promote something more often, and on average, posts that promote something reach less, link or not.
Posts with a link promote something much more often
90%of posts with a link promote something
36%of posts without a link promote something
Same creators, same type of post. Gap: January to July 2026. Share of posts that sell: July 2024 to July 2026, rated by an AI model.
What you've heard · 3 of 4
“Never share a bare link. The preview kills your reach.”
−35%
True
When the link preview card is the post's only visual, 1,000 impressions become 650, even compared with equally salesy posts. It's the only way of sharing a link that really costs. The gap is shrinking, though.
How much less a link-preview post reaches, period by period
−39%Jul 24 to Jun 25
−35%Jul to Dec 25
−27%Jan to Jul 26
And it doesn't get more clicks either
Image + URL2.6
Text + URL1.6
Link preview1.3
Out of 1,000 impressions, how many clicks on the link, for a typical creator. June to October 2026: LinkedIn only reports these clicks since June 2026.
What you've heard · 4 of 4
“Put the link in the first comment.”
−2%
No better
−2% vs the URL in the post, among 1,824 creators who did both: no measurable difference, so it gains nothing. And LinkedIn doesn't count clicks on a link in the comments, so you can't see how many people clicked.
Average gap: same person, same type of post, equally salesy, July 2024 to July 2026. These two posts only show the two ways of sharing a link.
The overall answer
All formats together: a link costs 11%.
We compare each post with a link to the same person's posts without one. Then we make the comparison fairer, step by step.
- −17%
Posts with a link vs withoutEverything, as is.
- −16%
Same type of postA text with a text, an image with an image.
- −11%
Equally salesyA sales post with a sales post, advice with advice.
Why step 3 matters: posts with a link usually promote something, and on average, posts that promote something reach less, link or not. Without step 3, the link would take the blame for the pitch.
Over time
Steady for two years.
The gap of step 3, period by period. It barely moved.
July 2024 to June 2025−13%
July to December 2025−10%
January to July 2026−10%
After July 2026: too early to tell. On the newest posts, the gap is still too uncertain to call.
What to do with your next posts
You have a link to share on LinkedIn. How?
You have a link to share
Will the link preview card be the post's only visual?
Yes
Write a text post or add an image instead.A preview card alone turns 1,000 impressions into 650. It's still the costliest way to share a link.−35%
No
What carries the post?
A textThe URL costs nothing measurable. Among people who posted both, comparing equally salesy posts, text + URL even did 7% better than image + URL.−2% · no difference
An imageA small cost: 1,000 impressions become 950. Keep the image if it carries the post.−5%
A carousel or a videoNo measurable cost. Go ahead.−1% · no difference
Wherever you land, the first comment does no better. −2% vs the URL in the post, no measurable difference, and you lose sight of the clicks.
Watch the pitch as much as the link. From January to July 2026, almost half of what a post with a link lost went with what it promoted.
About this study
The data
865,980 posts
Posts from 15,719 LinkedIn creators tracked by MagicPost, July 2024 to July 2026: text, image, carousel, video and link-preview posts, with or without a link. 124,893 posts with a link, from 9,931 creators, are compared with the same creators' posts without one in the same quarter. We left out company pages, accounts under 100 followers and posts under 3 days old.
The method
Each post with a link is compared with the same person's posts without a link, published in the same quarter. That way, a big account isn't compared with a small one, and a good season isn't compared with a slow one. Then we compare like with like: same type of post, then equally salesy. An AI model (gpt-5.4-mini) rated how salesy each post is, on every post with a link and on 35% of the posts without one.
How sure are we?
Each figure is an average. We also measured how much it would move with other creators: the overall 11% stays between 10% and 12%. When that range includes zero, we write “no measurable difference”. We reran the analysis many ways (each creator weighted the same, only posts measured for 14 days or more, matched pairs of posts), and the overall gap always stayed between 9% and 14%.
The limits
- We don't see how LinkedIn ranks posts, so we don't claim a cause. These are gaps between posts from the same people, and people pick a format to fit the post.
- How salesy a post is comes from an AI model, not a person, and two readings of the same post don't always agree. Some of the pitch's effect may still be counted as the link's.
- Accounts tracked by MagicPost, not all of LinkedIn.
- After July 2026: too early to tell. On the newest posts, the gap is still too uncertain to call.
- LinkedIn only reports link clicks since June 2026, and never counts clicks on a link in the comments.
- A link in the comments is spotted from phrases like “link in the comments” or a scheduled comment, so some wordings are missed.
- The example posts come from the author's own LinkedIn account. We show their public likes, comments and reposts, never their impressions.
FAQ
Is there a LinkedIn link penalty?
There is a measured gap, mostly from the link preview card. In MagicPost data on 865,980 LinkedIn posts, July 2024 to July 2026, a post with a link got 11% fewer impressions than the same person's equally salesy posts without one. Almost all of that comes from posts whose only visual is the link preview card; a URL in a text, image, carousel or video post got about 3% fewer. It's a measured gap: MagicPost doesn't see how LinkedIn ranks posts.
Does a URL in the post text lower LinkedIn reach?
Barely. In MagicPost data on 865,980 LinkedIn posts, July 2024 to July 2026, a URL in a text, image, carousel or video post got about 3% fewer impressions than the same person's equally salesy posts without one: 1,000 become 970. On text posts (−2%), carousels and videos (−1%), the gap is too small to tell apart from zero; on image posts, it's 5%.
Do LinkedIn link preview posts lose reach?
Yes. In MagicPost data on 865,980 LinkedIn posts, July 2024 to July 2026, posts whose only visual is the link preview card got 35% fewer impressions than the same person's equally salesy posts without a link: 1,000 become 650. The gap is shrinking: 39% from July 2024 to June 2025, 27% from January to July 2026.
Do promotional posts get less reach on LinkedIn?
Yes, and it explains a big part of the gap blamed on links. In MagicPost data on 865,980 LinkedIn posts, July 2024 to July 2026, 90% of posts with a link promote something, against 36% of posts without one. From January to July 2026, posts with a link reached 18% less than the same person's posts without one; compared with equally salesy posts, 10% less.
Is it better to put the link in the first comment on LinkedIn?
No. In MagicPost data on 865,980 LinkedIn posts, July 2024 to July 2026, a link in the first comment got 2% fewer impressions than a URL in the post, among 1,824 creators who did both: no measurable difference. LinkedIn doesn't count clicks on a link in the comments, so you also lose sight of the clicks.
Text or image for a LinkedIn post with a link?
Text did slightly better. In MagicPost data on 865,980 LinkedIn posts, July 2024 to July 2026, among 1,391 creators who posted both, a text post with a URL got 7% more impressions than an image post with a URL, compared with equally salesy posts.
Cite this study
Charts and numbers are free to reuse with a link to this page.
MagicPost (2026). “Do Links Really Hurt LinkedIn Reach? What 865,980 Posts Say” Study of 865,980 LinkedIn posts. magicpost.in/studies/linkedin-link-penalty