Google Quietly Removed the Indexing API Approval Process. What Does It Mean for Job Boards?

Google updated its Indexing API documentation today, October 16, and the change is small on the page but is it big for job boards? 

The quickstart used to have four steps and now it has three. The missing one is step 2, “Request approval and quota”, the step that has decided since September 2024 whether a new job board gets to use the Indexing API at all.

Now:

Before:

Look at the two screenshots again and you will see a second thing missing. The blue box that recommended the Indexing API instead of sitemaps for short-lived pages like job postings is gone too. Google also rewrote the quota page. It still lists 200 publish requests per day, 180 metadata requests per minute and 380 requests per minute per project. But the wording that the 200 are meant for onboarding and testing is gone, and so is the form to request more. 

Barry Schwartz spotted the same changes on Search Engine Roundtable this morning.

How we got here

In September 2024, I wrote about the last big change to the API (Major updates to the Indexing API - Impact on Job Boards and Aggregators). Until then, you created a service account, verified your site in Search Console and started pushing jobs the same day. After the update, the API started in test mode, and you had to fill out a form and get approved before you could use it in production. The quota page added that your quota may go up or down based on document quality. A new warning said every submission goes through spam detection, and that using multiple accounts to get around the quota can get your access revoked.

I read it as spam-fighting, aimed mostly at the “indexing tools” pushing blog posts and programmatic pages through an API built for jobs and livestreams. I still think that was the main reason. The form came with Google’s usual transparency: no criteria, no timeline, no appeal.

Then the approvals stopped. In July, I wrote that I had visibility over 50+ applications since October 2025 and none of them had been approved (Google Indexing API Quota Freeze: What Job Boards Should Do). In September, Nick LeRoy raised the same problem on X and Search Engine Journal picked it up. Between the two of us, we had 100+ job boards as data points and knew of no approvals in 2026. SEJ asked Google about the review process. Google had not responded by the time the article went out.

Now the form is gone from the documentation.

What has not changed

Before anyone panics: the projects I manage still have their approved quota. It is visible in the Google Cloud Console, the numbers have not moved, and the API calls go through.

A new project still gets 200 publish requests per day. And the Cloud Console still tells you that for anything above 200 you have to apply for a higher quota, with a link to do so. So the console points to a process that the documentation no longer describes.

The rules have not changed either. The API is still limited to pages with JobPosting or BroadcastEvent markup, and the spam warning about multiple accounts is still on the quickstart.

And Google Jobs traffic is still there. In late August, Google Jobs stopped showing fresh jobs for about two weeks, and the sites I monitor lost a good part of their Google Jobs clicks. That traffic is flowing again.

Six possible explanations

1. Something went wrong with the update

This was my first thought. The documentation and the Cloud Console are clearly out of sync, and this isn't the first time a docs update removed more than someone intended.

I don’t buy it anymore. Google logged the change in its Search Central changelog on October 16 and explained that the update was meant “to document the current quota limits for the Indexing API and remove an outdated form.” 

Uhm ok, so what do you mean actually? There is still a quota limit for new and old projects. How are you changing the process exactly? The way the documentation is now it literally says that there is no way to request quota … but there is still a quota limit… 

Confusing.

The console link was probably just not cleaned up yet, which is a much smaller mistake.

2. Nobody gets in anymore

“Outdated” is the word that bothers me. You call a form outdated when it no longer does anything, and for the people filling it out, it has not done anything for about a year. Removing it makes the documentation match what has been happening since October 2025: no new job board gets an approved quota.

The sitemap box fits this reading. It was the one place where Google said what every job board already knew: the Indexing API gets Googlebot to your job pages faster than a sitemap. I quoted it when Google retired the sitemaps ping endpoint (What does the deprecation of the sitemaps endpoint mean for job boards and aggregators?). If you stop letting new sites use the API at scale, you can no longer recommend it over sitemaps. Removing both on the same day is consistent.

What I can’t explain is the why. The abuse theory from July still works, but abuse is a reason to build better vetting, not to close the door for good. And existing quotas are still in place, which makes this a freeze on new entrants, not a shutdown. Over the summer, a few job board owners told me they set their quota to zero. None of the projects I manage lost theirs. 

There is one detail that could cut the other way. The 200 requests are no longer described as a testing quota. In July, I wrote that the testing quota does not actually trigger a crawl. If the label is gone, maybe the 200 are now a working quota for everyone, with no way to get more. That is easy to test with a fresh project and the getMetadata endpoint, and I will report back. 

3. Indexing Quota will be managed by Google

You start with the 200 quota, which we can still see in the account. You start sending jobs, and then Google decides how much to increase or decrease your quota based on site authority and what you sent on a daily basis. It does match a bit what we saw in summer, when some sites completely lost their quota and it is on par with the way Google manages crawl rate on a site - you have no influence over it.

Basically, quota became algorithmic. The 2024 line saying quota “may increase or decrease based on document quality” is gone from the quota page too. Google may now set quota automatically based on quality signals, with no human reading the form. That would explain zero approvals since October 2025. It would also explain the quotas reset to zero over the summer: automatic downgrades with nobody to appeal to.

4. Dedicated Partner Pipeline

On October 8, eight days before this change, Google launched the UGC Fresh Data Program. It is a direct ingestion pipeline for forums and social platforms. You apply through a form, get an answer in 6 to 8 weeks, and Google says it runs separately from the Indexing API. If Google wants fresh job data for AI Overviews and AI Mode, an invite-only jobs pipeline for big aggregators and ATS vendors would look exactly like this. The Indexing API would stay as the legacy door for existing users. This is the one I find most interesting for job boards but also a hard entry barrier.

5. Google Jobs is winding down

The timing makes this tempting. In late August, the Google Jobs index stopped picking up new jobs. In September, our study found AI Overviews on 48% of transactional job searches in the US and 47% in the UK, and those AI Overviews now list individual jobs (AI Overviews on Job Searches: Evaluating 600 queries in US, UK, DE). If Google is moving job search into AI Overviews and AI Mode, a public API built to feed the classic Google Jobs module is not where it wants new partners.

But that same study is why I wouldn't call it a wind-down. In the US, 89% of the result pages with an AI Overview also had a Google Jobs box; in the UK, 84%. Google Jobs traffic recovered after the outage. And when Google shuts something down, it usually says so, as it did when it announced the end of the sitemaps ping endpoint months in advance. In July, I wrote that I don’t think Google is abandoning Google Jobs, only tightening control over what goes in. Today’s update doesn't change my mind, but it does tighten the “control” part a lot.

6. Just Legal

It’s a legal and comms cleanup, not a product decision. SEJ asked Google about the review process on September 21 and got no answer. A public form that never responds is a liability, especially with an EU antitrust probe into AI Overviews running. Removing the form removes a promise Google wasn’t keeping, and nothing changes in practice.

What I would do now

If you have an approved quota, treat it as an asset you cannot replace. Don’t create new Cloud projects or service accounts to reorganize your setup. Make sure the Google account that owns the project does not belong to someone who might leave the company, because if that account gets deleted, the project and the quota may go with it. And don’t push anything but jobs through it.

If you don’t have one, stop waiting for an approval email. My advice is the same as in July: sitemaps for job pages and category pages, strong internal linking, fast pages, clean JobPosting markup and proper handling of expired jobs. Google still crawls job boards that are easy to crawl. And please don’t buy an “indexing tool” to work around this. That industry is a big part of why we are here.

This also changes the math for job board platforms. A platform with an approved quota on its own project can push jobs for a new customer on day one. A new job board on its own can’t. If you are launching a job board in 2027, you might want to explore buying an old one with a working quota.

I will update this post if Google says anything more. If you applied for quota recently and got any kind of answer, or if the “apply for higher quota” link in your console still leads to a working form, send it to me.

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