How can a confidential employer be identified in JobPosting?

Definition: In JobPosting structured data, an employer that is hiring anonymously is identified by an Organization object whose name is the literal value confidential. Google documents this value for hiringOrganization.name when a staffing agency or a platform is representing an anonymous employer.

Key facts

• Google defines hiringOrganization as the organization offering the position and says its ordinary value is the company name rather than the hiring location. The same guidance documents confidential for anonymous hiring. Google Search Central's JobPosting documentation gives both rules.
• Schema.org defines hiringOrganization as the organization or person offering the job position. Its expected types are Organization and Person, and its domain is JobPosting. Schema.org's property definition records these relationships.
• Schema.org describes a JobPosting as a listing for a job opening in an organization. Its type definition provides that broader context.
• Schema.org defines the name property as “The name of the item.” Its Organization definition includes that inherited property.

What value identifies an anonymous employer?

Google's JobPosting documentation says that an organization hiring anonymously can use the confidential value for the hiringOrganization.name field. The documented examples include a staffing agency acting for an anonymous employer and an employer hiring directly through a platform. The value is attached to the nested organization object, not to the top-level JobPosting name.

"hiringOrganization": {
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "confidential"
}

The string is lowercase in Google's example. The object keeps the property type as Organization, while its name carries the documented confidential marker.

What does hiringOrganization describe?

Schema.org's hiringOrganization definition describes the property as the organization or person offering the job position. It lists Organization and Person as the expected value types and lists JobPosting as the type on which the property is used. For this question, the Google example uses Organization because the value identifies an anonymous company.

For a named employer, Google's guidance says that the field must contain the company name, with “Starbucks, Inc” as its example. It separates that company identity from a specific hiring location, illustrated by “Starbucks on Main Street.” When the employer is anonymous, the same field uses the documented confidential value instead of a public company name.

Where should the markup appear?

Google's technical guidelines for JobPosting say to place structured data on the most specific page describing a single job with its relevant details. The documentation says not to add it to pages intended to present a list of jobs, such as search result pages. It also requires the JobPosting data to appear on the same page as the job description that job seekers can read in their browser.

The confidential employer object therefore belongs in the JobPosting markup for the individual vacancy. It does not turn a job index page into an individual posting, and it does not replace the job description.

How can the value be checked?

Google's JobPosting build and test guidance says to validate the code with the Rich Results Test. It also recommends deploying pages that contain the structured data and using the URL Inspection tool to test how Google sees the page. A check should confirm that the nested object has "@type": "Organization" and "name": "confidential", while the page itself describes one job and contains the readable job description.

The Schema.org property page describes the field's semantic range, while Google's JobPosting documentation supplies the anonymous-employer value. The documentation set names confidential as the marker for this case.

Related terms

• Can JobPosting markup be added to a job search results page?
• Which HTML formatting does Google support in a job description?
• Organization structured data
• JSON-LD

FAQ

Should I put the agency name in hiringOrganization.name?

Use confidential when the organization is hiring anonymously, as Google's example describes for a staffing agency acting on behalf of an anonymous employer. Use a company name when the employer is identified publicly.

Can confidential be used as the top-level job title?

No. Put it in the nested hiringOrganization.name field. The JobPosting still needs a job description on the individual vacancy page.

Where can I test the object?

You can enter the page or its code in Google's Rich Results Test, then use URL Inspection to test how Google sees the page.

Sources

1. Google Search Central, "Learn About Job Posting Schema Markup", 2026-09-08
2. Schema.org, "hiringOrganization", 2026-09-16
3. Schema.org, "JobPosting", 2026-09-16
4. Schema.org, "Organization", 2026-09-16

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