Cheezhead Recruiting News and Opinion

There’s a line in Wall Street when Michael Douglas’s character Gordon Gekko says, "Money never sleeps, pal."

Neither does the the world of search. Not even during New Year’s. One of the reasons I love it so much.

Let’s touch on a few recent newsworthy happenings:

1. Google Base. The search giant has started adding "jump pages" to its listings. Instead of sending a user directly to CareerBuilder, for example, from a list of results, Google sends users to a Google page that hosts the content.

Click here for an example. Big difference, huh?

From what I can tell, Google is doing this with all their listings from job sites that apparently upload content to the search giant.

I can’t imagine any board liking this idea. Your content might get extra exposure, and you will get more traffic. However, Google is taking your brand and flushing it down the proverbial toilet in the process.

Why did Google do this? My guess is that hosting the content with jump pages allows for more advertising real estate so the kids in Mountain View can toss more coins into the coffers.

Cool or uncool? Craigslist votes uncool, which brings us to No. 2:

2. Craigslist. According to a recent forum thread on Search Engine Roundtable, Craigslist has recently blocked Google and other search spiders from scraping specific content, which apparently includes job listings.

Not too long ago, Craigslist banned classified aggregator Oodle from spidering its content. Job verticals like Indeed and SimplyHired were spared.

Because of Craig’s ever-so-hippie demeanor since its inception, this seemed pretty odd to a lot of people. However, since Oodle certainly needed Craig more than the other way around, it was understood and accepted.

Banning Google, Yahoo!, MSN and everyone else, however, is a far more grandiose statement by Craigslist, basically telling search engines, Stick it, we don’t need you.

I can’t say I agree with this ‘walled garden’ mentality as a  widespread, long term strategy, but I do understand it. And I do envy Craig for being in such a position and taking such action.

In my predictions  for 2006, I said a major employer would receive money from a job site in order to get exclusivity over at least a portion of its job content. This stand by Craig is saying to the consumer, If you want to see jobs on Craigslist, the only place you can go is Craiglist. This strategy helps solidify their own userbase and marketshare while keeping Google at bay in the process.

So, what’s Google’s next move, and will other job sites follow Craig’s lead and turn off the aggregation faucet?

The answer may lie in another line from Wall Street: "What’s worth doing is worth doing for money."

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