Why a stale listing costs more than it looks
A job board has two audiences, and stale listings fail both. Candidates who apply to a role that was filled in the spring hear nothing back, and after two or three of those they decide the board is a dead end. Employers notice the drop in applications and stop posting. The board still has hundreds of jobs on it, and almost none of them are real.
Expiry is the cheapest fix there is. Every job gets an end date, the board enforces it without anyone remembering to, and the listings that remain are ones candidates can trust.
What expires and what stays
When a job reaches its deadline, WP Career Board moves it to Expired within the hour. That changes three things and leaves the rest alone.
It stops new applications. It removes the job from the listings, search results, the jobs RSS feed and the sitemap. And it marks the job’s page noindex, so search engines drop it from their results.
What stays is the page itself. Anyone who follows an old link, from a newsletter, a social post or a group chat, lands on the job with a clear closed notice and a list of similar open jobs underneath. That turns a dead link into a next step, and it means the board never sends visitors to a 404.
Applications already received are untouched. They remain in the employer’s pipeline, with their notes and stages, for as long as the employer needs them.
Warnings before the deadline
Nobody likes a listing vanishing by surprise. Three days before a job ends, the employer gets an email saying so, which gives them time to extend it while it is still live. Candidates who bookmarked the job and have not applied yet get reminders three days and one day before it closes, which tends to bring in the last good applications.
Setting the right length
Thirty days suits most general boards. A board for shifts, gigs or volunteering often does better with seven or fourteen, because those roles fill fast. A board for senior or specialist roles may want sixty. With Pro, each board on the site can carry its own length, so a single site can run a fast-moving shifts board next to a slower executive one.
Employers can choose an earlier end date when they post, for a role with a hard closing date, but not a later one than the board allows. Site moderators can set any date. That keeps the rule fair without stopping you from making an exception.
Pairs well with paid listings
If you charge for posting, expiry is what gives a listing its value: a paid post buys a set number of days, and a reopen or a new post is the renewal. Featured placement ends on its own after the number of days you set as well, so the spotlight keeps moving to new jobs. The monetisation page covers paid posting and featured upgrades, and the pricing models post covers what to charge.