I've spent the last few weeks looking through independent recruitment websites. Not to criticise them, just to see what candidates, clients and search engines actually see.
The same handful of problems keep turning up. None of them are especially difficult to fix. Most people simply don't realise they're there.
Here's what I keep finding, and how to check your own site in a couple of minutes.
1. The jobs page isn't actually there
You'd be surprised how often this comes up.
Sometimes the jobs link is in the navigation but the page is empty. Sometimes the link is broken. Sometimes there's a jobs page, but it hasn't been touched since the site went live, so it's still showing three roles from eight months ago.
An abandoned jobs page is almost worse than not having one at all. It tells visitors the business doesn't look particularly active.
How to check: Open your own site in a private browser window. Click through to the jobs page as though you've never seen the website before. Are the roles actually live? Would you look at that page and think, yeah, they're properly hiring?
2. An old staging site is still online
I've found several websites where an old staging or development version is still live, and Google has indexed it alongside the real site.
Whoever built the website probably meant to remove it. It just never happened.
How to check: Search your company name in Google and look through the whole first page of results. If you spot anything with 'staging', 'dev' or an unfamiliar subdomain, it's worth investigating.
3. Placeholder text never got replaced
This is the one that makes me wince a little. Template copy that's still live. 'Your company name here.' Sample paragraphs about a completely different business.
It's the sort of thing that instantly makes a website feel unfinished.
How to check: Read your own website slowly, page by page, as though you've never seen it before. It's tedious, but it's amazing what you notice.
4. The social links go nowhere
Those little LinkedIn, Instagram or X icons in the footer? Quite often they don't link anywhere, or they point to a profile that hasn't been updated in years. It's also really interesting how many recruitment websites seem to miss off LinkedIn, even when they have active profiles on there.
It's a small detail, but it's also one of the easiest things to fix.
How to check: Click every social icon on your website. Every one. Make sure it actually goes somewhere, and that it's still you on the other end.
5. The design looks great until you try to read it
Dark websites can look brilliant, but only if the contrast is good enough to read comfortably. I've seen plenty where the text almost disappears into the background once you look at it on a phone in daylight.
How to check: Open your website on your phone while you're outside. If you have to squint to read the opening section, your visitors probably will too.
The two minute version
Every one of these is something you can check yourself today with nothing more than your phone and a private browser window.
If you'd rather not check everything manually, our free Website Health Check runs through most of these automatically. It checks your jobs page, technical setup, structured data and a range of SEO and AI visibility checks, then explains the results in plain English.
No sign up. No sales call. Just a report showing what's working and what could be improved.