Disallow: /jobs/? is this stopping the SERPs from indexing job posts

[JamesHancocks1]

Hi,
I was wondering what this would be used for as it's in the Robots.exe of a recruitment agency website that posts jobs. Should it be removed?

Disallow: /jobs/?
Disallow: /jobs/page/*/

Thanks in advance.
James

[MattJanaway]

I'd guess that the jobs get pulled from a job board. If this is the case, then the content ( job description, title etc.) will just be a duplication of the content that can be found in many other locations. If a plugin is used, they sometimes automatically add a disallow into the robots.txt file as to not hurt the parent version of the job page by creating thousands of duplicate content issues.

I'd recommend creating some really high-quality hub pages based on job type, or location and pulling the relevant jobs into that page, instead of trying to index and rank the actual job pages.

[Keszi]

Hi James,

Regarding the robots.txt syntax:

Disallow: /jobs/? which basically blocks every single URL that contains /jobs/**? **

For example: domain.com**/jobs/?**sort-by=... will be blocked

If you want to disallow query parameters from URL, the correct implementation would be Disallow: /jobs/*? or even specify which query parameter you want to block. For example Disallow: /jobs/*?page=

My question to you, if these jobs are linked from any other page and/or sitemap? Or only from the listing page, which has it's pagination, sorting, etc. is blocked by robots.txt? If they are not linked, it could be a simple case of orphan pages, where basically the crawler cannot access the job posting pages, because there is no actual link to it. I know it is an old rule, but it is still true: Crawl > Index > Rank.

BTW. I don't know why you would block your pagination. There are other optimal implementations.

And there is always the scenario, that was already described by Matt. But I believe in that case you would have at least some of the pages indexed even if they are not going to get ranked well.

Also, make sure other technical implementations are not stopping your job posting pages from being indexed.

[Dezzign]

I don't think it should be blocked by robots.txt at all. It's stopping Google from crawling the site fully. And they may even treat it negatively as they've been really clamping down on blocking folders with robots.txt lately. I've seen sites with warning in search console for: Disallow: /wp-admin

You may want to consider just using a noindex tag on those pages instead. And then also use a canonical tag that points back to the main job category page. That way Google can crawl the pages and perhaps pass all the juice back to the main job category page via the canonical. Then just make sure those junk job pages aren't in the sitemap either.

[Keszi]

Sorry Richard, but using noindex with canonical link is not quite a good practice.

It's an old entry, but still true: https://www.seroundtable.com/noindex-canonical-google-18274.html

[Dezzign]

Ah yes when it's pointed out like that, it's a conflicting signal isn't It. Makes sense in theory, but if you're setting it to noindex and then passing that on via a canonical it's probably not the best is it.

They're was link out in that thread to a discussion of people who still do that with success, but after reading that I would just use noindex only as you said. (Still prefer the no index on the robots block though)

[Keszi]

The idea is (which we both highlighted), that blocking your listing page from robots.txt is wrong, for pagination you have several methods to deal with (how you deal with it, it really depends on the technical possibilities that you have on the project).

Regarding James' original question, my feeling is, that he is somehow blocking their posting pages. Cutting the access to these pages makes it really hard for Google, or any other search engine to index it. But without a URL in front of us, we cannot really answer his question, we can only create theories that he can test

[JamesHancocks1]

Hi Istvan,

Sorry I've been away for a while. Thanks for all of your advice guys.

Here is the url if that helps?

https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/jobs/

Cheers,

James

[Keszi]

Hi James,

So far as I can see you have the following architecture:

• job posting: https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/job/post-name/
• jobs listing page: https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/jobs/

Since from the robots.txt the listing page pagination is blocked, the crawler can access only the first 15 job postings are available to crawl via a normal crawl.

I would say, you should remove the blocking from the robots.txt and focus on implementing a correct pagination. *which method you choose is your decision, but allow the crawler to access all of your job posts. Check https://yoast.com/pagination-seo-best-practices/

Another thing I would change is to make the job post title an anchor text for the job posting. (every single job is linked with "Find out more").

Also if possible, create a separate sitemap.xml for your job posts and submit it in Search Console, this way you can keep track of any anomaly with indexation.

Last, and not least, focus on the quality of your content (just as Matt proposed in the first answer).

Good luck!