Glossary
Profile visibility
Profile visibility is the Upwork setting that decides who can see a freelancer profile: Public for anyone including search engines, Only Upwork users for logged-in members, or Private for logged-in people who have a direct link.
Updated
Also written: Private profile, Profile privacy.
The setting sits under Profile settings, in the Visibility section. Upwork's three levels:
- Public: anyone can see the profile, even outside Upwork, and it may appear in Google or Bing results.
- Only Upwork users: only logged-in members can find it, and search engines do not show it.
- Private: the profile is hidden from search on and off Upwork, and only a logged-in person with a direct link can open it.
Changes on Upwork "can take up to 24 hours". A profile that was public can linger in search engines for a few days afterwards, and Upwork points to Google Search Console for a manual removal request.
Private does not stop work. A logged-in client with the link can still open the profile. What private removes is discovery: the profile no longer comes up when a client runs a talent search.
Upwork can make the change for you. Inactive freelancer profiles are switched to private under rules on a separate help page, and logging out and back in restores the level you had chosen. Freelancer Plus members are exempt from that switch. Project Catalog listings have their own visibility toggle, independent of the profile.
How Upsight uses it. Keyword rank tracking reads Upwork's public talent search, so a private profile is recorded as absent from every keyword it is tracked for. When a tracked profile drops out of all its keywords on the same day, check its visibility setting before its title or skills.
Source
Upwork's definition: How to control who sees your Upwork profile, read on .
Where Upsight measures it: the ledger.