Advertising Policy

This page explains how advertising works on this site: what kinds of ads you might see, how they’re kept separate from job listings and editorial content, and what standards we hold advertising to. We’ve written it because we think a job board that’s honest about how it makes money is more trustworthy than one that pretends advertising doesn’t happen.

How this site is funded

Running a job board — hosting infrastructure, ongoing development, editorial time spent reviewing listings and writing blog content — has real costs. We cover these primarily through display advertising, including Google AdSense, shown in specific, clearly marked locations across the site. We do not charge job seekers for any part of using this site, and we do not charge employers a fee that grants preferential placement in search results over other listings (see the section on listing neutrality below). Advertising is what allows the core service to remain free for job seekers.

Where ads appear

Advertising is displayed in a small number of defined, consistent locations:

• A header slot, near the top of pages
• A sidebar slot, alongside job listings and blog content
• An in-content slot, appearing periodically within long job listing grids (for example, after every sixth job card) or within blog article content
• A footer slot, near the bottom of pages

We deliberately limit advertising to these defined slots rather than scattering ad units unpredictably through the page, because we think unpredictable ad placement is both a worse user experience and a weaker trust signal.

How ads are visually separated from content

Every advertising slot on this site is labelled with the word “Advertisement,” displayed clearly above the ad content itself, so there is never any ambiguity about whether you’re looking at editorial content, a job listing, or a paid advertisement. This labelling is present regardless of ad size or placement. We think this matters particularly for a job board, where the difference between “a job listing recommended to you because it matches your search” and “a paid advertisement” needs to be unmistakable — conflating the two would be a serious breach of the trust this site depends on.

Listing neutrality: advertising never affects which jobs you see or how they’re ranked

This is worth stating explicitly and separately from the general advertising discussion above, because it’s the point most relevant to you as a job seeker: no employer or advertiser can pay to have their job listing ranked higher in search results, shown more prominently in “Latest Jobs” or “Related Jobs” sections, or otherwise treated preferentially over other listings. Job ranking is determined by relevance to your search and filter criteria and by posting recency — the same rules apply to every listing regardless of whether the employer has any other commercial relationship with us. If we ever introduced a “featured” or “promoted” listing tier in future, it would be clearly labelled as such, separately from organic search relevance, and this policy would be updated to describe exactly how it works before it launched.

What kinds of ads we allow

Advertising on this site is served primarily through Google AdSense, which applies its own content and format policies to the ads it serves. Beyond that baseline, we apply additional standards of our own:

• We do not knowingly allow advertising for job application fee schemes, “pay to apply” services, or anything that contradicts our core position that legitimate job applications are free.
• We do not allow advertising formats that mimic job listings or editorial content in a way designed to confuse the two (native ads dressed up to look like organic listings).
• We do not allow intrusive ad formats — pop-ups that block content, auto-playing audio, or ads that interfere with using the search and filter tools.
• We reserve the right to block specific advertisers or ad categories we consider inappropriate for a UK job-seeking audience, even where the ad network’s own policies would technically permit them.

Advertising and page performance

We’re conscious that ad-heavy pages load slowly and feel hostile to use, which works against the basic purpose of a job board. Advertising is implemented with performance in mind — deferred loading where appropriate, and a deliberately limited number of ad slots per page — because we think a fast, usable site that shows fewer ads well beats a slow site cluttered with more of them.

Advertising and editorial independence

Advertisers have no influence over which jobs we publish, how we write our blog content, or what topics we choose to cover. This is covered in more depth on our Editorial Policy page, but it’s worth restating here specifically in the advertising context: no advertiser relationship — display advertising or, if introduced in future, affiliate partnerships as described on our Affiliate Disclosure page — determines editorial or listing decisions on this site.

Third-party ad networks and your data

Ad networks like Google AdSense may use cookies and similar technologies to serve relevant advertising and measure performance, which can involve tracking browsing activity across different websites, not just this one. Full detail on this, including how to manage or opt out of advertising cookies, is on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy pages.

AdSense approval and this policy

We want to be plain about one thing: publishing this policy, or displaying AdSense ads on the site, does not constitute or guarantee approval by Google or any advertising network, and we make no claims to advertisers or to you about guaranteed ad revenue, approval status, or advertising outcomes. This page describes our practices and standards, not a promise about a third party’s business decisions.

How to report a problem with an ad

If you see an advertisement on this site that you believe is inappropriate, misleading, or violates the standards described here — including anything that looks like a job-application-fee scam being advertised — please report it via our Contact page with as much detail as you can provide (a screenshot, if possible, and the page it appeared on). We take these reports seriously and will investigate and, where warranted, block the advertiser or ad category involved.

How many ads you’ll actually see

We deliberately cap the number of advertising slots per page rather than maximising ad density for revenue. A typical job listing page carries at most a small handful of ad placements across its header, sidebar, in-content, and footer positions — never stacked back-to-back, and never positioned so close to the “Apply on Original Website” button that a misclick could send you to an advertiser instead of the employer you actually intended to reach. We think this restraint is a genuine trade-off against revenue, and we’ve made it deliberately, because a job board that’s hard to use because of aggressive advertising isn’t one we’d want to run, independent of what it might earn in the short term.

Mobile advertising specifically

Mobile users make up a substantial share of job seekers browsing this site, often searching during a commute or a short break rather than at a desk. We’re particularly conservative about ad placement on mobile layouts, since small screens make intrusive or poorly placed advertising far more disruptive than on desktop — a full-screen interstitial ad that’s merely annoying on a laptop can make a site nearly unusable on a phone. We don’t use interstitial ad formats that block the page content on any device, mobile or otherwise.

Advertising and our AdSense relationship specifically

Where Google AdSense is used, we operate within Google’s own publisher policies in addition to the standards described above. This means we don’t click our own ads, don’t ask visitors to click ads, don’t place ads in a way designed to generate accidental clicks, and don’t run ad-heavy pages with limited original content purely to host more advertising units — a practice sometimes called a “made for advertising” site, which we’ve deliberately built this site not to resemble. The job listings and blog content are the actual product; advertising funds that product rather than being the product itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can an employer pay to have their job listing appear higher in search results?

No. Job listing order is based on relevance to your search and filters and on posting recency, not on any payment or commercial relationship. This applies to every listing on the site.

How do I know if something on the page is an ad or a job listing?

Every advertising slot is clearly labelled “Advertisement” above the ad content. Job listings are never labelled this way, because they are never advertisements in this sense — they’re organic content matched to your search.

Does this site guarantee I’ll be approved for Google AdSense if I use this theme or copy this policy?

No — this policy describes our own advertising practices and doesn’t constitute or imply any guarantee regarding AdSense approval, which is determined entirely by Google based on their own review process.

What should I do if I see a suspicious or scammy ad on this site?

Report it immediately via our Contact page with details of what you saw and where. We’ll investigate and take action, which may include blocking the specific advertiser.