It came out recently that Google employs some 10,000 human watchdogs to check search results, catch Webmasters behaving badly, whatever. The ultimate goal, if I were a betting man, is to support their algorithm with flesh-and-blood, to make sure the best results are served. Makes sense.
I’m a bit biased, but they frankly need to put some of these human beings on “jobs,” the employment industry’s most searched term and consistently one of their most popular. Here’s a breakdown of current results (and yes, results may vary):
- Jobs.com – Monster property, made up primarily of Monster content
- CareerBuilder – OK
- Monster – See No. 1
- Jobs.net – CareerBuilder property, made up of CareerBuilder content
- HotJobs – OK
- NY Times – Jobs in New York, partnered with Monster and an investor in Indeed.com
- SF Gate – Jobs in San Francisco, powered by HotJobs
- Newsday – More New York jobs, powered by CareerBuilder
- Indeed.com – OK
- MSNBC – Jobs with MSNBC; MSN jobs section powered by CareerBuilder
- Chicago Tribune – Powered by CareerBuilder
- SacBee.com – Newspaper site powered by CareerBuilder
- Wikipedia entry on Apple’s Steve Jobs – Whatever
- Yahoo Directory – Easy access to Y! property HotJobs, top three links are Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs
- MercuryNews.com – San Jose area jobs, powered by Yahoo! HotJobs
I could go on, but you get the idea: Duplication and localization I’d argue can be greatly improved – especially considering the alternatives. Craigslist, for example, should undoubtedly be a Top Ten result if humans really have any say at Google.
The above list is understandable, and even defensible if you’re talking algorithm-only driven results. But, like Google admits, thousands of humans are checking this stuff. And again, this isn’t some obscure search term. Lots of people are going to Google and typing in j-o-b-s. And I believe they deserve better.
Popularity: 2% [?]
August 14th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Interesting. I wonder if we’ll be seeing payoffs for the human search checkers to get results boosted to the top?
August 14th, 2007 at 10:39 am
To expand on that topic, there are job boards that take the strategy of creating hundreds of domains, and propagate the same jobs, search content, and tools across these domains, pretending to be a regional or niche job board. They tell customers and jobseekers that they cross-post to “hundreds of different job boards”. Many of these sites amount to little or no traffic and simply serve to confuse and clutter the job board marketplace. When claims are made that 40,000 job boards exist, the numbers are skewed by the fact that there may only be 10,000 unique boards, and the others are simply mirror sites of the main job board.
There are sites that claim to be local, but have simply purchased a domain with the city name in it, and start spamming customers about $149 job postings, hoping that recruiters are stupid enough to actually buy a posting. Example: go to WorkChicago.com – do you see localized content? Let’s look at the recent postings on the front page of the site: ‘ee268eu’ posted in CA, ‘EUPosting 86′ in CA, ‘TestTestTest’ in Chicago, and ‘posting16′ in San Hose, CA. Hmm….not to mention that none of the jobs are based in Chicago, I’ve always wanted to be a ‘TestTestTest’. Maybe I’ll apply. There’s quality for you.
Additionally, there are sites that slap the ‘D’ word on their site and claim to be all about diversity. When a sales rep from a diversity job board recently called to ask us to buy into a CPC model and help expose our customers to a diverse jobseeker audience by feeding them our jobs, I asked them specifically how they reach diversity candidates. “Do you advertise in minority publications? Do you purchase billboards in low income areas? Do you provide offline outreach at hiring centers, advertise on BET, spend money at minority colleges & universities? How many Asians come to your site? African Americans?” The sales rep went silent.
I think you’ve touched on a sore subject for legitimate job board operators who truly try to add value to their clients and their jobseeker audience. By exposing and eventually eliminating this clutter and redundancy from the marketplace, jobseekers and employers will have a better and more fulfilling online job search experience.