---
id: blocked-countries
title: Blocked countries
description: Drop jobs during discovery when the listing location mentions a blocked country.
sidebar_position: 7
---

## What it is

**Blocked countries** is the **Blocked countries (location filter)** field in **Settings → Scoring Settings**. Any job whose **location** string mentions a supported country you listed (for example `India`, `UK`, `Poland`) is **dropped during discovery** and is never imported.

Country tokens are normalized to canonical keys (for example `India` → `india`, `UK` → `united kingdom`).

## Why it exists

Global and remote boards often return roles tagged to countries you do not want (for example India-remote QA listings while you target Canada). This filter applies at import time so those rows never enter your **Discovered** queue.

When **Search cities** (or pipeline geography) is a single country such as **Canada**, JobOps also enforces an **allow-list**: only jobs that clearly hire in that country are kept. Vague `Remote` / `Worldwide` rows with no Canada signal are dropped, as are rows that mention any other country.

## How to use it

1. Open **Settings** and expand **Scoring Settings**.
2. Find **Blocked countries (location filter)**.
3. Add country names or aliases one at a time, or paste a comma- or newline-separated list.
4. Click **Save Changes**.
5. Run the pipeline again — blocked countries apply to **new discovery only**; they do **not** delete jobs already in the database.

### Tips

- Use country names as they appear on listings: `India`, `Poland`, `United Kingdom`, or aliases `UK`, `USA`.
- With **no** country-level search geography, listings whose location is only `Remote` / `Worldwide` with no blocked country in the text are **kept**.
- With search geography set to a country (for example `Canada`), vague remote rows with no signal for that country are **dropped** even if they are not on the blocked list.
- The list is capped in Settings validation (max 50 entries, each up to 100 characters).
- Pair with **Search cities** / **country** settings to narrow what extractors query; blocked countries filter what still comes back from broad boards.

### Maintenance

- **Add** countries when you see unwanted geography on new runs.
- **Remove** a country if you blocked too aggressively — save, then run discovery again.
- **Existing jobs** are unchanged; use Jobs filters or **Danger Zone** only if you want to clear old rows.

## Common problems

### Blocked countries still appear

- Confirm you clicked **Save Changes**.
- Only **new** pipeline runs apply the filter. Jobs already imported stay in **Discovered** until you skip or delete them.
- If the listing location does not mention the country (for example only `Remote`), the job is intentionally kept.

### Too many jobs disappeared

- Check whether a broad alias matched unexpectedly. Remove or narrow the token.

## Related pages

- [Duplicate job detection](./duplicate-jobs)
- [Company skip list](./company-skip-list)
- [Settings](/docs/features/settings)
- [Pipeline Run](/docs/features/pipeline-run)
- [Orchestrator](/docs/features/orchestrator)
