Google removed the approval form and related instructions for its Indexing API from official documentation on Oct. 16, creating uncertainty for developers and operators of job boards globally.
The change left many in the development community questioning whether the requirement for additional approval to use the API beyond testing purposes had been eliminated or simply made less transparent.
Prior to Oct. 16, Google’s documentation explicitly stated that the API necessitated extra approval for usage exceeding basic testing and provided a direct link to an application form. Both the statement and the form are now absent from the updated pages, according to the company’s changelog.
The changelog noted an update to reflect current quota limits and the removal of an outdated form. However, it did not clarify if the underlying approval requirement itself had been modified or dropped.
Job board operators had previously reported significant delays, sometimes waiting several months, for responses to their API approval requests before this recent documentation change.
Despite the alterations in the approval process documentation, the Indexing API continues to be restricted to pages containing JobPosting or BroadcastEvent embedded within a VideoObject.
Default quota limits for the API remain unchanged, allowing for 200 publish requests per day, 180 metadata requests per minute, and a total of 380 requests across all endpoints per minute.
Google’s official job posting guide still recommends using the Indexing API over traditional sitemaps for submitting job posting URLs, further highlighting the API’s importance for specific content types.
Source: Search Engine Journal
