LinkedIn in 2026: The Algorithm No Longer Works Like You Think
What You’ll Learn About LinkedIn in 2026:
Why your reach likely dropped in late 2025 (even if your content didn’t)
How LinkedIn now decides who sees your posts
Which engagement signals actually matter—and which don’t
Why personal profiles outperform company pages (and what to do about it)
How to adjust your LinkedIn strategy without gaming the system
Forward from Andrew Edwards, Co-Founder of designACE
If you’ve been on LinkedIn for a while, you probably felt it.
Somewhere in late 2025, posts that should have done well… didn’t. Content you were proud of flatlined., engagement slowed, and reach dipped for many. And suddenly, all the advice that used to work felt unreliable.
At first, it’s easy to assume you’re doing something wrong.
But the truth is simpler than that: LinkedIn didn’t break. It evolved.
At designACE, we manage LinkedIn strategies across industries—founders, service businesses, nonprofits, B2B teams. And we started seeing the same pattern everywhere.
LinkedIn is no longer rewarding volume, speed, or surface-level engagement. It’s now rewarding relevance, trust, and depth.
Let me explain what changed and how to work with it instead of fighting it.
-ACE
Co-founder, designACE
Say hi on LinkedIn
Why LinkedIn Feels Harder Than It Used To
Here’s the biggest shift most people missed:
LinkedIn stopped prioritizing recency and started prioritizing relevance.
In mid-to-late 2025, LinkedIn began surfacing older posts more frequently, which made feeds feel “stale” for some users. According to Business Insider’s reporting on LinkedIn’s feed test, LinkedIn said it was intentionally balancing recency with relevance so you don’t miss big updates that matter (like job changes or key professional insights).
At the same time, LinkedIn confirmed it’s investing heavily in AI-driven systems that understand intent, topic, and professional relevance, not just engagement volume. You can see this clearly in features like AI-powered people search, which LinkedIn rolled out to Premium users as a signal of where the platform is headed.
Translation:
LinkedIn is getting much better at deciding who a post is actually for.
And that means broad, generic content has a harder time breaking through.
How LinkedIn Looks at Your Post Before It Spreads
Most people think LinkedIn works like this:
Post → show it to followers → see what happens → expand reach
In 2026, there’s more happening behind the scenes.
LinkedIn doesn’t simply publish every post and see what happens. As explained in Hootsuite’s breakdown of how the LinkedIn algorithm works, the platform first runs posts through an initial quality check, classifying them to identify spam-like behavior, low-quality signals, or content that lacks clear professional relevance. Only after a post passes this early filter does LinkedIn test it with a small portion of the network, using engagement quality, not volume, to decide whether it deserves wider distribution.
According to Social Media Today’s coverage of LinkedIn’s updated documentation, LinkedIn now states it may “limit the visibility of comments a member or Page can make… and if we detect excessive comment creation or use of an automation tool, we may limit the visibility of those comments.” This reflects an official change where LinkedIn is explicitly acknowledging automated engagement patterns and reducing the visibility of comments made through automation tools.
So today, your post isn’t just competing with other posts.
It’s also being filtered by LinkedIn’s quality and trust systems.
The Engagement Signals That Matter Now
If you’re still judging success by likes alone, LinkedIn in 2026 will feel confusing.
In late 2025, LinkedIn added Saves and Sends to post analytics.
This is LinkedIn telling us what it values.
Engagement that’s gaining weight:
✅ Saves (people bookmarking your post)
✅ Sends (people sharing via DM)
✅ Thoughtful comments
✅ Time spent actually reading
✅ Engagement that continues beyond the first hour
Engagement that’s losing weight:
❌ Automation comments
❌ Generic “Great post!” replies
❌ Engagement pods
❌ Fast spikes with no depth
If you want a simple rule:
LinkedIn is rewarding content people keep, share privately, and talk about.
Not content that just looks busy.
Why Personal Profiles Are Winning (and Company Pages Aren’t)
This part frustrates a lot of teams but it’s important to understand.
According to the Algorithm InSights 2025 Report (analyzed and reported by Entrepreneur), organic posts from LinkedIn company pages now reach only about 1.6% of their followers, and content from company pages accounts for roughly 1–2% of the overall LinkedIn feed, highlighting how limited organic company page reach has become.
At the same time, LinkedIn continues to prioritize people over logos in the feed.
You can see this direction clearly in two moves LinkedIn made in late 2025:
Limiting advanced company analytics unless you’re on a Premium plan
Expanding verification requirements for companies, recruiters, and executives to improve trust and reduce scams
The message is clear:
Company pages = credibility, legitimacy, infrastructure
Personal profiles = reach, conversation, distribution
This doesn’t mean company pages don’t matter.
The brands seeing the most organic success in 2026 are the ones empowering founders, leaders, and employees to be visible while the company page supports from the background.
The 2026 LinkedIn Playbook (Organic)
Here’s what we’re recommending right now at designACE.
1. Write content worth saving
Frameworks, breakdowns, lessons learned, checklists. Anything someone would want to come back to later.
LinkedIn is measuring saves now. Use that.
2. Be specific about who the post is for
“Everyone needs this” doesn’t work anymore.
“If you’re a founder dealing with X…” does.
Clarity helps both humans and the algorithm.
3. Ditch automation. Invest in real conversation
LinkedIn is actively suppressing automated engagement.
Fewer comments. Better comments. Real reactions.
4. Use your company page intentionally
Post proof. Wins. Events. Hiring. Partnerships.
Then let your people carry the story forward.
What Not to Do on LinkedIn in 2026
🚫 Don’t chase volume
🚫 Don’t rely on engagement pods
🚫 Don’t sound generic or AI-polished
🚫 Don’t expect company pages to outperform people
🚫 Don’t assume low reach means bad content
Final Thoughts: This Is not to punish but to filter
LinkedIn didn’t make things harder to frustrate you.
It made things more selective to protect the feed.
If your reach dipped in late 2025, you don’t need a new personality, a new posting schedule, or louder hooks.
You need clearer positioning, stronger relevance, and content that actually earns attention.
That’s the game in 2026.
💡 Want help adapting your LinkedIn strategy to how the platform actually works now?
If you’re tired of guessing, our team at designACE can audit your personal and company content and rebuild it for today’s feed, not last year’s.
👉 Book a strategy call and let’s fix what LinkedIn stopped rewarding.
