indeed.com adds sponsored listings (smells like google adwords … and adsense)
April 29th, 2006
Indeed continues to impress.
As reported by Jason Gorham of CareerMetaSearch, Indeed is enhancing his job site’s listings by highlighting them and popping them to the top for targeted searches. Looks like Dice is doing the same, as well as BAJobs and who-knows-who-else. If you’ve seen Google’s “Sponsored Links” then you get the idea.
From his comments, it looks like Gorham’s agency is passing this expense along to its clients, but that the ultimate cost is the job board’s. Looks like this solution is on a pay-per-click basis if you go on your own, but it may be a flat fee for Gorham’s company. Pretty smart move for Indeed to ally with the job sites in this manner. By creating additional revenue sources for the sites they spider, they’re creating more friends than enemies.
To date, these highlighted listings don’t seem to transfer to Indeed’s network API. For example, if you do a search on Indeed for “search engine optimization,” you get Dice as a sponsored link. However, if you search search engine optimization jobs on Oaseo, powered by Indeed, there are no sponsored links. I assume that’ll change soon and create even more revenue opportunities for both job site and Indeed. Not to mention Web publishers wanting to make a buck or two.
Listening to thought leaders like Peter Weddle, niche sites are being created at a mind-spinning rate. If Indeed can entrench itself into this tail better than its competitors - and they seem to be doing a pretty good job - they just might have something.
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April 29th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
How are they creating additional revenue for the job sites they spider?
You mean revenue “from” the job sites they spider?
In your example with DICE-
http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Business+Analyst&l=&radius=
The organic result for the same sponsored job is just 2 places below, if the jobseeker clicks the sponsored job link then DICE is paying for that referral on (a pay per click basis) if the job seeker clicks on the organic result Dice pays nothing for the referral.
So Indeed aggregates Dices content and then charges DICE for referral back to their own content!!
Personally I think “sponsored jobs” is a bad idea , it kills the model by creating a conflict of interest. Indeed is now effectively allowing jobs to be posted directly on their site and in doing so competing with the job boards…..
April 30th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Works for Google.
April 30th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
yes, works for Google but Google is not a vertical and not crawling one specific type of content (in this case jobs!) so less room for conflicts of interest.
Joel - can you clarify what you mean when you say “they are creating additional revenue for the job sites they spider?” Do you mean revenue FROM them or FOR them?
Thanks!
May 1st, 2006 at 12:31 am
I agree with harmony jones, I was surprised when I read ““they are creating additional revenue for the job sites they spider”. The way I see it, Indeed will be charging the job sites for premium placement of their ads. Am I missing something?
May 1st, 2006 at 5:47 am
Time will tell. Bottom line is ROI … if a job board can upsell their postings to show up as sponsored results on Indeed, it becomes a revenue opp FOR the job site.