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Hello Webmasters!
Much has happened since our previous FAQ post as Google’s job search feature is continuing to expand to over 120 countries and 8 languages! Check out jobs.google.com/about to find public documentation and Ziprecruiter's recent case study explaining how integrating with Google's job search feature grew it's conversion rate by 4.5x! Job seekers can learn more about the job search experience like searching for jobs using military occupational specialty (MOS) codes, finding commute times and saving your favorite jobs.
Google’s job search feature is continuing to expand to over 100 countries and 8 languages! Check out jobs.google.com/about to find public documentation and Ziprecruiter's recent case study explaining how integrating with Google's job search feature grew it's conversion rate by 4.5x! Job seekers can learn more about the job search experience like searching for jobs using military occupational specialty (MOS) codes, finding commute times and saving your favorite jobs.
Much has happened since our previous FAQ post as Google’s job search feature is continuing to expand to over 120 countries and 8 languages! Check out jobs.google.com/about to find public documentation and Ziprecruiter's recent case study explaining how integrating with Google's job search feature grew it's conversion rate by 4.5x! Job seekers can learn more about the job search experience like searching for jobs using military occupational specialty (MOS) codes, finding commute times and saving your favorite jobs.
Google’s job search feature is continuing to expand to over 100 countries and 8 languages! Check out jobs.google.com/about to find public documentation and Ziprecruiter's recent case study explaining how integrating with Google's job search feature grew it's conversion rate by 4.5x! Job seekers can learn more about the job search experience like searching for jobs using military occupational specialty (MOS) codes, finding commute times and saving your favorite jobs.
Q: How do I start using the indexing API?
Indexing API Guidelines to follow:
- Similar to sitemaps, use canonical URLs on each copy of the page. Canonicals are essential for consolidating duplicate’s and sending signals to Google for which is your preferred URL
- Ensure that Googlebot can crawl your job posting web pages (not protected by a robots.txt file, robots meta tag, or no index tag
- Verify that markup is updated on both user-agents(mobile/desktop). You can use the rich results tester to toggle between mobile/desktop user-agent to check if each recognizes the same markup
- To confirm if your page is mobile first indexed, use the URL inspection tool to see if mobile/desktop user agent is being used to crawl your job posting.
- Ensure that your host load settings allow for frequent crawls
- Complete pre-requisites
- To help scale authentication across, Use Domain property by using a single Service Account email across your sites. This is helpful for sites that have a global presence and have multiple country sites that share a parent domain(i.e fr..example.com, de.example.com)
- Authorize Requests
- For sites like ATS's where authentication is requested on the client-side another tool to consider using is Google's site verification API
- Send a test request to see if authentication is complete
- Follow the steps for sending an UPDATE request to one of your URLs or use the API explorer
- If you receive a 200 status, auth is complete! If you receive a 403 status response, revisit the pre-req's to make sure you've completed all the requirements
- Using Indexing API to remove/update your job posting
Updating/Removing a job posting via indexing API is a 2-step process:
- Adjust your pages markup
- Updating a new/current job posting:
- Make sure to put structured data on the most detailed leaf page possible.
- Confirm that your job posting markup is passing by using the rich results tester
- Removing an expired job posting that is no longer available
- Page is removed entirely (returns a 4xx status)
- Remove JobPosting structured data from the page.
- validThrough date property is in the past
- Send your indexing API requests
- Use Batch requests to combine up to 100 calls into a single HTTP request
- Use the URL inspection tool “Live Test” to view when your page was crawled last. If the page was recently crawled, go onto the feature and search for your expired job posting to verify that the job posting is no longer live.
- Requesting More Quota (recommended for larger sites)
- Make sure that you've implemented markup across your job postings before requesting more quota
- Each URL within your batch requests counts towards your daily quota.
Q: Should I use the indexing API if my site already uses sitemaps?
Since job sites have a high rate of updates/removals, we recommend using the indexing API for informing Google to do a fresh page crawl, which can lead to higher quality user traffic.
Q: I’ve received a manual action. What can I do to make sure that it’s resolved and removed?For job posting URLs, we recommend using the Indexing API to send updates/removals instead of sitemaps because the Indexing API prompts Googlebot to crawl your page sooner than removing the URL from the sitemap and pinging Google. However, we still recommend having keeping your sitemap updated with only live job postings so that crawlers can use it as a reference in case if your requests return any API errors
Check the troubleshooting guidelines for common issues and the list of manual actions before verifying these points and submitting your reconsideration request:
- Make sure to remove expired jobs displaying on the feature as this violation can affect all of your site’s job rich snippets. It's common to see expired job postings still display on the feature when step #1 is completed in removing a job, however, using indexing API to complete step #2 is highly recommended as it’s the quickest way to inform Google of removals.
- If the job posting apply directs to the employer’s job post, verify that the job posting’s description is complete and aligns with the employer’s description.
- A job posting is considered expired if the description contains application end dates in the past or notification that the job is no longer available
- Do not apply markup to job postings that look like they could be scams, contain descriptions promoting hiring events/job fairs, or job postings requiring an application fee.
- Note: Manual penalties applied on individual scam jobs do not affect the rest of the site, but we strongly encourage that you clean up your site from all user-generated spam in order to preserve its overall quality
Use the URL Inspection tool to find any structured data error or indexing issues:
- If the URL Inspection tool mentions that your "URL is not on Google - This page is not in the index, but not because of an error”, use the indexing API to directly notify Googlebots that your page has an update and is ready to be crawled.
- Use the URL inspection tool to see whether your page is being crawled by mobile or desktop Googlebot. If it is mobile, verify that the markup on your mobile/desktop pages are aligned
- Open the Manual Action Report to see if your site has any manual actions issued against it and view the site's manual action history. If your site has a manual action violation, use the troubleshooting guidelines as a guide.
- Verify that your job posting’s jobLocation is recognized by Google.
- Ensure that you're keeping a simple URL structure and submitting URLs without any parameters or session id's.
- Consolidate duplicate URLs by setting your canonical to your preferred page
Note: We suggest removing building or floor numbers from the jobLocation address as they’re not always recognized by Google.
Q: What tools can I use for tracking job posting metrics?
We've recently updated our documentation with Jobs specific filters, tracking parameters and tools to help track your job posting's performance!
Q: How can I fix my apply button title if it is incorrectly appearing on search results?
If you’re seeing apply button titles for your job postings appear incorrectly, follow the tips provided for creating good titles and snippets in Search Results
Q: Why isn't my logo appearing on my job posting?
- Follow the logo troubleshooting steps mentioned for updating your logo markup
- Verify image is following logo guidelines.
- Image must be between 1:1 - 2:1 ratio
- Verify image URL is accessible by Google by running it through URL inspection tool and clicking "Live Test"
- Submit image sitemap to schedule a fresh crawl for quicker processing
- Verify image is indexed using URL inspection tool
Q: Can you tell me more about remote feature?
Google’s job search experience will soon launch the ability for providers to label remote jobs in Google Search. This allows job seekers to find a job directly in Google Search that they can perform from home. If you’re a job data provider, you’ll need to add markup to your remote job postings so that they can be included in our results when users are looking for remote jobs.
Q: How should I utilize both sitemaps and Indexing API?
Implementing the indexing API and keeping a dedicated updates sitemap of live job postings, is our recommended approach for sites that have a high rate of updates/removals. The Indexing API is an easier, faster, and more reliable way to inform Googlebots of your updates/removes and also prevents the need for submitting an entire sitemap list of job posting URLs after each update.We recommend using the indexing API to send requests while also keeping your sitemap updated with current (non-expired job) postings. Doing so will help act as a backup for our crawlers to reference in case if your request responds with an indexing API error.indexing API:
- Quicker updates by submitting individual HTTP requests to individual URLs
- Ultra low latency in order to display changes <15 min of request, compared to sitemap(hourly)
- Easier to debug issues with async notifications
- Explicit Deletion semantic
Sitemaps:
- Beneficial for large scale updates
- Can contain up to 50K of URLs
- Supports many submission endpoints(e.g. robots.txt, sent by ping, Search Console, etc.)
- Easy to generate
Q: Indexing API: I’m receiving 429 HTTP status errors for “...exceeding the Indexing API quota”, how can I request more?
429 HTTP status error is due to your requests exceeding the quota currently granted. Request more quota by submitting a request form. Once submitted, your request will be reviewed within 1-3 business days. Increasing your quota and use of the indexing API is also free of charge!***Here are a couple of things to note for 429 HTTP status errors:
- URLs that receive a 429 HTTP response will not be successfully sent by the indexing API.
- Verify on your API console whether your 429 errors are from exceeding your per minute or daily quota
Q: Indexing API - Does each URL in my batch HTTP request, count towards my quota?
Yes, each URL listed in your batch request, counts as an HTTP request towards your daily quota amount. This includes both URL_UPDATED and URL_DELETED request types.
Q: Indexing API - Why am I receiving the 401/403 status error when I try sending an API request?
If you’re receiving 401/403 errors, make sure that your account has completed the prerequisites for authorization in order to send request using the indexing API. Once completed, you can test locally by submitting an update request to see if you’re receiving a successful 200 HTTP status.
Q: How long will it take to see an update when using the indexing API?
As long as your job postings have passing markup and are accessible by Google, you should see an update within 1-2 hours of sending your HTTP request.
Please do not reply to this post. Instead, we encourage you to create a new post in the Structured Data section so internal experts and Product Experts can provide support. If you have any further questions that haven't been answered on this post or the previous FAQ post.
Hope this helps!
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