A consultancy moved links to the comments. Reach on link posts jumped 3x.

A consultancy moved links to the comments. Reach on link posts jumped 3x.

The question: does LinkedIn actually suppress posts with external links, and does 'link in comments' recover the loss?

The case: a B2B consultancy A/B-tested link placement over 6 weeks. Same article, promoted two ways in matched weeks: (A) link in the post body, (B) link in the first comment with a text-only body. Sample: 30 post-pairs.

Three findings:
— Body-link posts averaged ~900 impressions; link-in-comment versions averaged ~2,700 — roughly 3x.
— Click-through rate to the article was lower on the comment version (the link is one tap further), partially offsetting the reach gain.
— Net clicks to the site were still ~1.5x higher for link-in-comment, because the reach gain outweighed the friction.

Limitations: LinkedIn tunes ranking continuously, so this may decay — re-test quarterly. Single account, small sample.

What it means for B2B: the link tax is real, but moving the link trades reach for friction — net clicks decide the winner, not reach alone.

Bottom line: link-in-comments won on net clicks here, by a margin smaller than the raw reach gap suggests.