Why can Perplexity’s API not return LinkedIn URLs while the interface can?

General
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Why can Perplexity’s API not return LinkedIn URLs while the interface can?

I would like to use the Perplexity API for LinkedIn sourcing.
The idea is simple: give an instruction such as:

“Find me a LinkedIn contact, {job post} at {company}, and return only the profile URL.”

Findings

  • Via the Perplexity interface (site/app):
    It works. The tool finds profiles, provides a hyperlink to the LinkedIn profile, and sometimes even additional contact information.

  • Via the Chat Completion API:
    Doesn’t work.
    No matter how I phrase the prompt (I tried multiple variations), the answer is always a tutorial like:
    “Open your browser, go to Google, search for ‘LinkedIn’…”

  • Via the Search API:
    Same issue. Impossible to get any result coming from LinkedIn. I only have some other websites like blogs.
    I even tried dork-style queries like:

    site:https://www.linkedin.com/in/

    → No usable output.

My questions

  1. Why this difference between the Perplexity interface and its APIs?

    • The interface seems to access LinkedIn results without a problem.

    • The APIs, however, return absolutely nothing.

    • So this is probably not a LinkedIn crawler block, but rather a restriction voluntarily imposed by Perplexity?

  2. How does the Perplexity Search API actually work?

    • Is it a headless browser like automated Chrome?

    • Or an integration with a service such as SERP API?

    • Are dork-style queries unsupported?

    • And if it’s using SERP API, is it them who block access to LinkedIn?

:backhand_index_pointing_right: Has anyone already dug into how Perplexity’s Search API works?
:backhand_index_pointing_right: And more importantly, is there any official way to get LinkedIn results through the API (as you can through the interface)?

Thank you for your help.