🔎 LinkedIn Companies Suggestions Scraper

LinkedIn Companies Suggestions Scraper — Lookalike Companies with Follower Counts

Find similar companies for any LinkedIn company page. Paste one or more company URLs and get the "Pages people also viewed" lookalikes back as structured rows — company name, industry, LinkedIn profile URL and a live follower count.

Bulk input, /company/ and /showcase/ URLs both supported, and the li_at cookie is optional.

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What is LinkedIn Companies Suggestions Scraper?

Building a target account list usually starts with a handful of companies you know are a good fit — and then stalls, because finding twenty more like them means guessing at industry codes and headcount bands.

LinkedIn already solved that problem and put the answer on every company page. The "Pages people also viewed" panel is a lookalike list built from real visitor behaviour: the companies that the people researching this company also researched. It is a better similarity signal than any filter you could construct, and it is public.

This Actor extracts that panel. Give it a company URL and it returns the lookalikes with their industry and profile URL, then enriches each one with a live follower count through LinkedIn's own API — so you get both "who is similar" and "how big are they" in the same row.

Follower count is the useful addition. A lookalike list without size data is a list you still have to qualify one page at a time; with followers attached, you can sort by scale and cut straight to the accounts that match your ICP.

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What data can you extract?

Field	Description
title	Company name
subtitle	Industry, as LinkedIn labels it
url	LinkedIn company profile URL
followers	Follower count, formatted with thousands separators
input_url	The company you asked about — so bulk runs stay traceable

input_url matters in bulk. Run twenty seed companies and every lookalike row still tells you which seed produced it, so you can build separate expansion lists rather than one undifferentiated pile.

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Why teams use lookalike company data

For account-based marketing

Take your ten best customers, run them through, and the output is a target list built from real research behaviour rather than from firmographic guesswork.

For sales prospecting

One good-fit account expands into a shortlist of neighbours in the same category — often including competitors you had not heard of.

For competitive landscape mapping

Run your own company URL. The lookalikes are, in effect, who the market thinks you compete with.

For market research

Follower counts across a lookalike set give you a quick read on the size distribution in a category.

For investment sourcing

Starting from a known company in a thesis area, lookalikes surface comparable businesses for a screening list.

For partnership discovery

Companies adjacent to your customers — not competitors, but sitting next to them in the same buying research — are natural partner candidates.

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How to find lookalike companies step by step

1. Collect the LinkedIn company URLs you want lookalikes for. Both /company/ and /showcase/ URLs work.
2. Paste them into LinkedIn Company URLs — bulk input is supported.
3. (Optional) Paste your li_at cookie for best reliability: linkedin.com → DevTools (F12) → Application → Cookies → https://www.linkedin.com → copy li_at. Leave it blank to use the built-in session.
4. Click Start, then export the Output tab as CSV, Excel or JSON.

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⬇️ Input

Example input

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-times/",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-economist/"
  ],
  "liAtCookie": ""
}

Input reference

Field	Type	Default	Description
urls	array	— (required)	LinkedIn company URLs to find lookalikes for. Bulk input supported; /company/ and /showcase/ URLs both accepted.
liAtCookie	string	""	Optional. Your LinkedIn li_at session cookie, used to fetch follower counts through the authenticated API. Leave blank to use the Actor's built-in session — follower counts still populate. Supply your own for best reliability.
proxyConfiguration	object	Residential	Optional. Force a specific proxy. Leave empty for the default smart fallback: the Actor is residential-first and rotates IPs until one returns a real page, because LinkedIn authwalls datacenter and direct traffic.

Treat li_at like a password. Anyone holding it can act as you on LinkedIn.

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⬆️ Output

Example output

{
  "input_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-times",
  "title": "The Economist",
  "subtitle": "Book and Periodical Publishing",
  "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-economist/",
  "followers": "3,842,117"
}

Illustrative values — a live run returns current LinkedIn data.

Diagnostic record

If a run finds no lookalikes at all, a single non-charged diagnostic row is written so the dataset is never silently empty:

{
  "input_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/example",
  "title": "",
  "subtitle": "",
  "url": "",
  "followers": "",
  "status": "no_results",
  "reason": "no_lookalikes_scraped",
  "detail": "LinkedIn returned no 'Similar pages' section for the given company…"
}

Check for status: "no_results" in your pipeline and treat those rows as diagnostics, not companies.

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Usage recipes

Expand your best customers into a target list

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/customer-one/",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/customer-two/",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/customer-three/"
  ]
}

Group by input_url to see which customer produced which neighbours, then sort each group by followers to match your usual deal size.

Map your competitive set

Run your own company URL. The result is the market's view of your competitors, not your own.

Two-hop expansion

Feed the url values from a first run back in as urls for a second. Two hops usually covers a category; three drifts off-topic.

Size-filtered prospecting

Parse followers to an integer and keep the band that matches your ICP — small enough to move fast, large enough to pay.

Industry clustering

Group by subtitle to see which industries the lookalike set actually spans. Categories are often broader than expected.

Enrich further

Feed the resulting company URLs into a full company scraper for headcount, funding and firmographics.

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How does this compare to LinkedIn's official API?

LinkedIn's official APIs — Marketing, Sales Navigator, Talent Solutions — are partner programmes: they require an approved application, and they serve advertising, recruiting and partner sales workflows. None of them exposes the "Pages people also viewed" panel, and there is no public endpoint that returns lookalike companies for an arbitrary company page.

This Actor reads the publicly visible company page — the panel LinkedIn shows to any visitor — and enriches it with follower counts.

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Integrate and automate

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN>")

run = client.actor("scraperforge/linkedin-companies-suggestions").call(run_input={
    "urls": ["https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-times/"],
})

for c in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    if c.get("status") == "no_results":
        continue                                   # diagnostic row, not a company
    print(c["title"], "|", c["subtitle"], "|", c["followers"], "|", c["url"])

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN>' });

const run = await client.actor('scraperforge/linkedin-companies-suggestions').call({
    urls: ['https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-times/'],
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.filter((i) => i.status !== 'no_results'));

REST API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scraperforge~linkedin-companies-suggestions/runs?token=<YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"urls":["https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-times/"]}'

n8n, Make, Zapier and AI agents

Call the Actor from n8n, Make, Zapier or an MCP-capable agent to expand accounts automatically as they enter your CRM.

Schedules and webhooks

Attach a Schedule to re-run seed accounts periodically and deduplicate on url, then route results with webhooks or the Google Sheets / Airtable / HubSpot integrations.

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Pricing and what you are charged for

Billing details for this Actor are shown on the Pricing tab of its page — check there for the current model and rates before a large run. Apify shows a cost estimate before and during every run.

Charging is per real lookalike returned. The diagnostic record written by a zero-result run is not charged, and if a spend limit is reached mid-run the Actor stops cleanly with everything already saved preserved.

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Limits, reliability and blocking

• Not every company has a "Similar pages" panel. Small or new pages often have none, and those runs return the diagnostic record rather than companies.
• Panel size is decided by LinkedIn, not by a setting here. Expect a handful of lookalikes per company, not hundreds.
• Residential proxy is used by default and matters. LinkedIn authwalls datacenter and direct IP ranges, so the Actor rotates residential IPs until one returns a real page. That makes runs slower and more reliable.
• The cookie is optional but helps. Cookie-less runs use a built-in session and still populate follower counts; your own fresh li_at is the most reliable path.
• Cookies expire — copy a new one if follower counts start coming back empty.
• followers is a formatted string ("3,842,117"). Strip the separators before sorting numerically.
• subtitle is LinkedIn's industry label, which can be broad or unexpectedly specific.
• Blank followers means enrichment failed for that company, not that it has none.
• Lookalikes are behavioural, not editorial. The panel reflects what visitors also viewed, so it can include partners, employers and adjacent categories as well as competitors.
• Automating LinkedIn access is contrary to its User Agreement. Keep runs proportionate if that matters to your account.
• Default run options are 4 GB memory and a 1-hour timeout.

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Is it legal to scrape LinkedIn company pages?

This Actor collects publicly visible company information — the "Pages people also viewed" panel and follower counts shown on public company pages. It does not collect personal profiles, private company data, or anything behind a paywall.

Company data is generally not personal data, which puts it on firmer ground than profile scraping. Even so: comply with LinkedIn's User Agreement, which restricts automated access, and with data protection law in your jurisdiction. If you supply a li_at cookie, you are acting as that account — keep the cookie secret and usage moderate.

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❓ Frequently asked questions

Do I need a li_at cookie?

No — it is optional. Cookie-less runs use a built-in session and still populate follower counts. Your own fresh cookie is the most reliable option.

What exactly are "lookalike" companies?

The companies in LinkedIn's "Pages people also viewed" panel — derived from real visitor behaviour, not from a filter you configure.

Are showcase pages supported?

Yes. Both /company/ and /showcase/ URLs are accepted.

How many lookalikes will I get per company?

However many LinkedIn publishes for that page — typically a handful. It is not adjustable.

Why did I get a row with status: "no_results"?

That is the diagnostic record. The company had no "Similar pages" section, or every proxy IP was blocked. It is not charged.

Why is followers empty on some rows?

Follower enrichment failed for that company. It does not mean the company has no followers — retry, or supply a fresh cookie.

Can I sort by follower count directly?

Parse the string to an integer first — it is formatted with thousands separators.

Can I chain runs to expand further?

Yes. Feed the returned url values back in as urls. Two hops is usually the sweet spot before results drift off-topic.

Why is residential proxy the default?

LinkedIn blocks datacenter and direct IP ranges, which authwalls the guest company page carrying the panel.

Which export format should I use?

CSV or Excel — the output is flat and imports straight into a CRM.

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🔗 Related scrapers

• LinkedIn Company Scraper with Firmographics & Funding Data — enrich each lookalike with full company data.
• Linkedin Company Employees Scraper — find people at the companies you shortlist.
• LinkedIn Company Associated Members Scraper — associated members for a company page.
• Linkedin Open Profile Status — see who you can message without InMail credits.

Browse the full collection on the ScraperForge profile.

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💬 Feedback

Need deeper enrichment, multi-hop expansion, or numeric follower counts? Open an issue on the Issues tab of this Actor.