LinkedIn API for Company Directory

Question

I'm trying to use the LinkedIn API to search for companies, not users. I specifically don't want users - only companies.

I had a look at the LinkedIn API Documentation (RTFM and all that), but as far as I can tell it's not supported. There are 2 posts on the forum which pretty much says this outright - here and here

I'm basically just looking for a simply search interface, similar to what is going on on the LinkedIn homepage. I also want to display the info coming back in some way.

Am I better off simply doing a manual GET to the website itself? Would I need to cache the results? Would I need to manually parse the HTML coming back?

I'm planning on implementing this in Ruby, but that's not really what I'm concerned about.

Answer 1

Update: There is now an official API: https://developer-programs.linkedin.com/documents/company-search

The official API does not seem to have this feature. However they do have a URL where you can pass in a search for companies and it will return a JSON response with the company name, logo URL, number of employees, and a link to the company profile.

For instance a search of "citr" would be

http://www.linkedin.com/ta/federator?query=citr&types=company,group,sitefeature

Which returns

{
   "sitefeature":{
      "resultList":[

      ]
   },
   "company":{
      "resultList":[
         {
            "id":"1195260",
            "headLine":"<strong>CiTR<\/strong> SHINDIG",
            "displayName":"CiTR SHINDIG",
            "subLine":"Entertainment; 1-10 employees",
            "url":"http://www.linkedin.com/companies/1195260"
         },
         {
            "id":"2641",
            "headLine":"<strong>Citr<\/strong>ix Systems",
            "imageUrl":"http://media03.linkedin.com/mpr/mpr/shrink_40_40/p/3/000/043/32b/0076ade.png",
            "displayName":"Citrix Systems",
            "subLine":"Computer Software; 1001-5000 employees",
            "url":"http://www.linkedin.com/companies/2641"
         },
         {
            "id":"7659",
            "headLine":"<strong>Citr<\/strong>oen",
            "imageUrl":"http://media01.linkedin.com/mpr/mpr/shrink_40_40/p/3/000/01d/3d0/277c145.png",
            "displayName":"Citroen",
            "subLine":"Automotive; 10,001+ employees",
            "url":"http://www.linkedin.com/companies/7659"
         },
         {
            "id":"260214",
            "headLine":"PSA Peugeot <strong>Citr<\/strong>oën",
            "imageUrl":"http://media02.linkedin.com/mpr/mpr/shrink_40_40/p/2/000/021/0b7/07c4193.png",
            "displayName":"PSA Peugeot Citroën",
            "subLine":"Automotive; 10,001+ employees",
            "url":"http://www.linkedin.com/companies/260214"
         },
...

Answer 2

Actually, the LinkedIn API does now have a company search feature, available since last May: https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/company-search

LinkedIn has several Company APIs, this is just one of them. Please feel free to read through the documentation and see what's available.