Profile sitemaps that stay current.
Help people find relevant profiles through search.
Where this work fits
The sitemap work started with a mismatch: many submitted pages were not useful search results, while worthwhile profiles were hard to find. Careers pages also needed to stop advertising jobs after hiring had closed.
I built sitemap features that select useful public profiles and refresh their entries as the underlying information changes. The work included the directory data, XML endpoints, and cache updates, so search discovery could continue after the initial rollout.
A page becomes discoverable
Alex Okafor
Software engineer
Pages to discover.
Only public pages belong in the sitemap
Public pages enter the sitemap so search engines can find them. Private pages stay out of the list.
How discovery works
A sitemap gives search engines a list of pages to discover. It helps crawlers find content, but does not guarantee indexing. Page access controls remain separate from sitemap inclusion.
When a page becomes public, its URL enters the sitemap. When it becomes private, the URL leaves. Search engines get a list that follows the content.
Coverage or relevance?
A longer sitemap could still send a search engine to empty or outdated pages. I focused on useful coverage and kept existing listings current through events and cache invalidation. An update needed to change the relevant listing without rebuilding every directory.
The skills behind the work
- Scala
- Backend development within established services, including asynchronous work and integration boundaries.
- SQL
- Query and update relational data, with clear rules about which records a result represents.
- Sitemaps
- Provide search engines with a structured list of public pages they can discover.
Profile indexing improved. Careers listings became more selective, removing pages that no longer reflected active hiring. For that part of the work, fewer submitted pages was a useful result.
- Google-indexed pages
- +1,700%Growth in indexed candidate and company pages after the sitemap improvements.