That bold/italic text in your headline is hurting you with AI search · AI for LinkedIn

That bold/italic text in your headline is hurting you with AI search

Noticed a few people in here using it, so flagging it.

LinkedIn is now the second most cited source in AI search. Behind Reddit.

The fancy bold and italic characters (like 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 or 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁) aren't actual bold text. They're separate Unicode characters made to look like letters. To AI tools reading your profile, they don't register as real words.

Semrush and Scrunch just published research on what gets LinkedIn content cited by tools like ChatGPT and Claude. Using this kind of formatting cut citation rates by 58%.

Fix it - takes two minutes. Go to your headline and About section. If any of it is fake-bold or fake-italic, retype it in plain text.

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That bold/italic text in your headline is hurting you with AI search