My name is Alexan­der, and I advise job boards, aggre­ga­tors and ATS plat­forms on SEO, Google Jobs opti­miza­tion and AI. As part of my work, I mon­i­tor Google for var­i­ous sig­nals relat­ed to rank­ing. Last week, I noticed some sig­nif­i­cant changes in the US that I want to share with the Job Board Doc­tor com­mu­ni­ty this week.

The lat­est Google Core Update has sig­nif­i­cant­ly altered how job seek­ers inter­act with job-relat­ed search results in the US, poten­tial­ly reshap­ing the online recruit­ing land­scape. As some­one who has been focus­ing on SEO for job boards and ATS plat­forms over the past five years, I was stunned.

Let me break down the key impacts and what they mean for job boards, appli­cant track­ing sys­tems (ATS), and job seek­ers.

Today, most job seek­ers search for jobs using key­words or com­bi­na­tions relat­ed to the job title, the job cat­e­go­ry, loca­tion and com­pa­ny.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, job boards like Indeed dom­i­nat­ed search results, even for brand-spe­cif­ic search­es. This means that if you type “job title + loca­tion” after the spon­sored results (which are often owned by large job boards), you usu­al­ly see Indeed’s search result land­ing page (pages with jobs list­ed, like domain.com/marketing-jobs-in-london) on top of the search results. After the intro­duc­tion of Google Jobs in 2017, the typ­i­cal Search Engine Results Page (SERP) struc­ture includ­ed spon­sored links, Google Jobs, and organ­ic results (often led by Indeed and oth­er job boards). These results also applied to brand­ed search­es, where the user spec­i­fies the com­pa­ny name or pro­vides a spe­cif­ic job title.

How­ev­er, the August update has turned this on its head.

Here is what changed:

1. Pri­or­i­tiz­ing direct job links: Google now push­es sin­gle job links from com­pa­ny ATS plat­forms to the top of organ­ic results for brand­ed search­es. This is a mas­sive shift from pre­vi­ous prac­tices. For exam­ple, search­ing for “prod­uct man­ag­er job ope­nAI” in the US cur­rent­ly yields links to 5 job ads from the Ope­nAI ATS in the top 10!
2. Com­pa­ny career pages are pri­or­i­tized: offi­cial career pages and ATS list­ings are now promi­nent­ly fea­tured, often above the Google Jobs fea­ture.
3. Niche job boards get a boost: small­er, spe­cial­ized job boards with detail-rich crafter search result pages are see­ing improved vis­i­bil­i­ty in search results, espe­cial­ly for pre­cise brand­ed search­es.
4. Google Jobs place­ment varies: in cas­es where Google finds exact job match­es to show in the organ­ic search, the Google Jobs UX is not trig­gered.
5. Enhanced site links for ATS Pages: Google dis­plays more detailed site links for ATS plat­forms, includ­ing direct job links and cat­e­go­ry pages, in the first result, max­i­miz­ing their organ­ic per­for­mance.

What This Means:

For job seek­ers: You’re more like­ly to find direct links to rel­e­vant posi­tions and offi­cial com­pa­ny career pages, stream­lin­ing your job search process.

For employ­ers: Your ATS and career pages now have a fight­ing chance against sig­nif­i­cant job boards in search results. It’s time to opti­mize these plat­forms for SEO.

For job boards: Niche play­ers may see a traf­fic boost.

For ATS providers: There’s a new­found oppor­tu­ni­ty to dri­ve traf­fic direct­ly to your plat­form. Focus­ing on well-struc­tured career sites with clear cat­e­go­ry pages could pay div­i­dends.

For Indeed: The job search giant is los­ing its strong­hold on brand­ed search­es, and its dom­i­nance is in dan­ger.

Why the change, and why now?

Google’s goals for this update include show­cas­ing more gen­uine­ly help­ful con­tent and con­nect­ing users with high-qual­i­ty sites. By pri­or­i­tiz­ing direct job links and offi­cial career pages, Google seems to align with these objec­tives. Why send the job seek­er to a search result page with jobs if there are exact jobs match­ing the search cri­te­ria?

While it’s too ear­ly to pre­dict the long-term impact, one thing is clear: the online recruit­ing land­scape is evolv­ing. Employ­ers, job boards, and ATS providers must stay agile and adapt their strate­gies to this new real­i­ty. As always, those who can quick­ly piv­ot and opti­mize for these changes will like­ly see the most sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits in our indus­try.

Ready to dive deep­er? Read the full debrief from Alexan­der in the 3 parts list­ed below.

Part 1: Intro­duc­tion

Part 2: Deep Dive

Part 3: Strate­gic mean­ing and con­clu­sion

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