Google has updated its guidelines warning users that failure to remove expired job postings may result in a manual action penalty.
Google has changed its requirements for job postings: “Failure to take timely action on expired jobs may result in a manual action” https://t.co/nUUlZkfm14 pic.twitter.com/P8phFR5Lgi
— Aaron Bradley (@aaranged) April 12, 2018
These guidelines refer specifically to job positions that have been published to a website using job posting markup. The new guidelines should not affect web pages for job openings that have not been marked up with structured data.
When a job posting is no longer available, site owners can avoid penalties by either: removing job posting markup, removing the whole page, or adding a noindex tag to the job posting.
One could argue that a manual action is an extreme measurement to take against expired job postings. However, this will help prevent searchers from finding and applying for jobs that are no longer available.
This also begs the question — if there’s no deadline indicated on the job posting, how will Google know when it’s expired?
Google would presumably have to rely on searchers to report expired job postings. The search quality team would then have to somehow confirm the job position is not available anymore.
On one hand this could limit the amount of expired job postings that show up in Google Search. On the other hand, this sounds like a difficult guideline to enforce.
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