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The official content guidelines from Google for a Job Posting mention that the hiringOrganization is required and that "You must include the required properties for your structured data to display in search results. Any job posting that is missing the required fields will not be considered for enhanced Search results."

However, the same documentation page also states that "[in the event that an employer isn't revealed,] the hiringOrganization property must be blank." (see "Valid Examples" in the "Content Guidelines" section)

Additionally, in the official structured data test tool from Google, an error is shown if the hiringOrganization is left blank (either with an empty JSON object "hiringOrganization": {} or an empty string "hiringOrganization": "").

Given the clear contradiction in the official documentation, what is the correct way to represent an unspecified employer in Google's Job Posting structured data?

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In the Google Guides to Job Posting stated quite clearly:

hiringOrganization - Organization, Required - The organization offering the job position.

...You must include the required properties for your structured data to display in search results. Any job posting that is missing the required fields will not be considered for enhanced Search results.

In addition, it says:

Job postings must fairly represent the hiring organization and job to be performed by the applicant.

Therefore, you must use the hiringOrganization property in your structured data, otherwise Google will ignore your structured data for this type.

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  • The same documentation page also mentions that if the company is unspecied/not revealed, the property can be left blank (see "valid examples" in "content guidelines"). I'm really looking at a solution/guideline to navigate this contradiction. I've updated my original post to include these clarifications.
    – William Perron
    May 22, 2018 at 19:30
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    If the employer is not specified, then the semantics of the hiring announcement is lost. You can not specify in the announcement "Unknown employer wants to hire ...." because it will be meaningless. By the way in this manual Google informs: "Any job posting that is missing the required fields will not be considered for enhanced Search results".
    – nikant25
    May 23, 2018 at 11:30
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    An employer masking its information in a job posting is a common practice in the industry, and certainly Google seems to think so as they write "This is acceptable because the role is well-defined and the company does exist, even if it isn't revealed" from the same documentation page. I'm looking for a way to satisfy this scenario while also satisfying the general content guidelines.
    – William Perron
    May 23, 2018 at 11:48

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