The Uncertain Future of Google Jobs: What 2025 Holds?

Over the past 4 years I have been consulting over 150 job boards on SEO and Google Jobs optimization. Every start of the year, I get asked this question – will Google Jobs survive another year?  

2024 was a bit shaky for Google and its product strategy in online recruiting. Given how Google killed the paid Google Job Ads product in early 2024 (covered by me here) and their hard focus on AI, people in our industry are rightfully concerned about whether Google Jobs will survive another year. 

What is Google Jobs?

Google Jobs is a specialized search feature that aggregates job listings from job boards, career sites, and company pages and displays them directly in Google’s search results. Launched in 2014, it provides a more efficient way for job seekers to discover relevant openings and for employers to connect with a broader audience. 

Why do job boards, ATS vendors and aggregators care about Google Jobs?

For many job boards, Google Jobs is a vital source of FREE organic traffic. Prominently displaying job postings in Google’s search results offers significant exposure without the need for additional advertising.

Google Jobs is a popular source of traffic, because in the past even new job boards could rank fairly quickly with little effort, which is not to be said for ranking with search result landing pages.

However, if Google Jobs were to shut down or undergo drastic changes, job boards might experience considerable shifts in traffic, user engagement, and an overall decline in revenue. Thus, “Is Google Jobs going away?” raises genuine concern among industry professionals.

Is Google Jobs safe in 2025?

Although you can never be sure with Google, let’s look at the facts. Here are six reasons why Google Jobs is not going away anytime soon: 

1. A Major Redesign in Early 2024

In early 2024, Google Jobs underwent its first large-scale user experience (UX) revamp since its launch. The redesign rolled out across the EU and the US, indicating that Google is committed to keeping the feature fresh and relevant—rather than phasing it out.

I have covered the new UX in my posts in January:

2. EU Antitrust Caution

Industry insiders note that the new, subtler UX may respond to legal precedents set by the Google Shopping antitrust case in the EU. Given that Google was found to have abused its market dominance in comparison shopping, the company is taking careful steps to avoid similar issues with Google Jobs.

3. Legal Victory Against Jobindex

Google recently won a landmark case in Denmark, brought against it by Jobindex over alleged copyright infringement. This outcome reassured many observers that Google is legally prepared and financially committed to defending and maintaining Google Jobs:

4. Partial Job Descriptions for EU Users

The EU version of Google Jobs now displays partial job descriptions to avoid future copyright conflicts. This change indicates that Google prioritizes compliance and lowers legal risks instead of leaving the market.

5. Removal of Bad Actors & Prioritizing Quality

Over the past year, Google has cracked down on low-quality job sources. They increasingly favor applicant tracking system (ATS) platforms and legitimate job boards—an indication of their effort to ensure a trustworthy, high-quality user experience (at least on paper, because an ATS is not always a guarantee for a good UX). 

I have written an extensive report in three parts on how Google prioritized ATS in branded job searches (you can also find Part2 and Part3 on my blog). We are slowly beginning to see a similar pattern in Google Jobs.

6. Indexing API Approval Changes

In the past, anyone could create a service account, put the schema on their job ad pages, and send them to Google via the Indexing API. However, this has changed significantly in 2024. Google requires additional vetting before new job boards post jobs to the Indexing API. 

This requirement signals that Google wants to control quality and actively oversees new participants, suggesting an ongoing commitment to Google Jobs’ quality. 

Introduction of the job sites SERP feature

This is not directly related to Google Jobs, but in early 2024, Google released a new SERP feature for job seekers– an aggregated list of job site search result pages that get triggered if someone does a job-related search. I have covered it extensively in my blog post:

Will Google Jobs Last Forever? 

While all signs point to Google Jobs remaining a priority for the foreseeable future, it’s important to remember one thing: Google has a long history of discontinuing products when they no longer align with its strategic goals. Although these six factors strongly suggest that Google Jobs isn’t going away anytime soon, no Google service is ever truly guaranteed a permanent place. 

How did Google Jobs change in 2024?

Looking back at 2024, much has changed in how job boards, ATS platforms and aggregators rank on Google Jobs. The most significant update came in December 2024, after the last core update. 

I have seen that “thin content” job boards have lost significant organic traffic. Some algorithms that classify content as spammy or not impact these sites. 

A “thin content” job board is a site with only job ad pages, no EEAT, very few and (or) mostly unoptimized relevant search result pages and generally no content other than jobs. I guess this is triggering some of the spam classifiers that Google used to weed out the AI-scaled sites from the summer of 2024. 

Another indication of “thin content” job boards is predominantly sponsored job backfill.

Here is a screenshot from a site's search console that got hit in December: 

At the same time, I have seen solid growth in organic traffic from Google Jobs for all the sites I work on with high domain authority and long histories. Some even saw a twofold increase year over year in the first two weeks of January.  

What are the most critical factors in optimizing your Google Jobs performance in 2025?

In summary, Google is looking for more quality in the job area of its search, which is good.

How can you position your site?

The most important strategy will be building EEAT and domain authority. In the content of job boards, this includes:

• Having a proper about / team page
• Giving an impression of a serious business (address, legal entity)
• Having helpful content, related to the job industry (salary reports, employer profiles)
• Blog with real author names and corresponding biographies
• Additional metadata on jobs and employer pages
• Building backlinks
• Having high-quality job inventory
• Extended schema with address and salary data
• Topical authority specifically for the niche you are covering

Bottom Line: It remains critical for job boards, staffing agencies and recruiters to optimize for Google Jobs. Its prominent placement in search results is a massive driver of highly converting organic traffic. Common sense dictates, that based on the effort Google has invested into the product last year and the legal foundation presently, Google Jobs will remain live.

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