Comments on: indeed.com algorithm favoring direct employers?

By: Manish

Manish — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:33:59 +0000

Its easy to say that the search should show up only jobs from corporate sites, However with the newer complex web technoligies , alomost all the sites generate dynamic links (URL’s) and hence it won’t be easy to spider all these dynamic pages and throw in search results, may be only 15-20 % of Non-Dynamic pages might come from corpoaret sites. Will need to define a new dynamic Crawler (may be specfic to jobs) to get these job pages only from corporate sites. I have one such crawler defined , however it needs some basic configuration after which it gets the required job pages (Dynamic / Non-Dynamic) for that website.
Configuration is required to control the relevant job pages only , however search engines can crawl everything initially and then filter only jobs related pages using some algorithm.
Does it sound feasible & sensible ?

By: Daren

Daren — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:00:28 +0000

Maybe I am missing something here.
There is a very simple reason why direct-hire spots appear first: those companies PAY Indeed to spider/index their job postings to the Indeed website.

By: Chad Sowash

Chad Sowash — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:39:40 +0000

On the other side of the coin, I agree having the ability to filter out the job boards would also be incredibly helpful as well. Providing only jobs coming directly from corporate sites would be extremely helpful to job seekers trying to make a direct connect with companies, not just dump a resume in another job board database. “ex: “just show me all jobs from company sites, not job boards”.

By: Job Boarders Guy

Job Boarders Guy — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 02:06:35 +0000

I think this has more to do with the types of jobs and where they are online right now. I’m on Indeed every week and really haven’t noticed any other examples like this. Job boards are Indeed’s major clients so they aren’t going to diss us. We pay their salaries. What I’d really like to see Indeed add is the ability to filter results based on sources. The abliity to see all jobs from a particular job board is appealing to job seekers. ex: “just show me all jobs from this job board”

By: Joel Cheesman

Joel Cheesman — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:43:51 +0000

Greg … I’m attending Kennedy in Orlando, but not speaking.

By: Greg Rollett

Greg Rollett — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:25:32 +0000

Joel,

Are you speaking in Orlando?

We have had out own issues with Indeed locally and grabbing old feeds, but hey, it’s a price you pay to tap into their traffic I guess.

By: Res Ipsa Loquitor

Res Ipsa Loquitor — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:22:27 +0000

Joel is totally right on this one. The Job Boards have allowed themselves to be ‘Googled’. They erroneously believed the line in the sand was whether Indeed and its ilk would allow employers to post jobs to their site.

As long as Indeed didn’t cross that line, the big players would stay hooked up to the juice of buying listings and providing content for search. Meanwhile, more and more of their traffic is sourced from Indeed, and they can’t afford to quit Indeed; as the market would punish them too much.

The job boards didn’t get (or more likely were stymied by the prisoner’s dilemma of a diverse market) that if employers create their own job sites (with JobThread, etc) and advertise their listings on Indeed, they completely obviate the value of the job board.

It completely amazes me that the job industry could watch much of the publishing industry essentially destroyed by Google and search, and not recognize the same pattern in their backyard.

I’m not sure it is Checkmate yet — I think if Monster and CareerBuilder quit Indeed and its ilk tomorrow, they could potentially survive. But the window is *rapidly* closing.

By: Nick Roy

Nick Roy — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:34:54 +0000

For “sales” in “miami,” 6 out 10 listings on the first page are from corporate sites. For “sales” in “fort lauderdale,” its 5 out of 10.

By: Nick Roy

Nick Roy — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:29:45 +0000

It looks like it depends on the search term used. I typed the following keywords:
“seo” “miami,”
“web designer” “miami,” and
“administrative” “miami”

I still found a bunch of job boards in the search results on the first page. Also, no Craigslist postings show up in any of the results.

By: Joel Cheesman

Joel Cheesman — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:15:37 +0000

I would guess most of the ATS content is also on the job boards. Without official word or an inside source, it’s all speculation. I can only go on what I see and hear.

Paul Forster has called “pay-per-hire” the Holy Grail. Their own pay-per-applicant solution, which plugs into a variety of ATS’s, is one step toward this objective. Without traffic to the corporate Web sites, this vision can’t happen. So giving corporate sites an upper hand in results pages helps accomplish the ultimate goal.

I merely think job boards have to ask themselves some hard questions as they gradually appear to be getting squeezed out of the equation. They did, after all, make Indeed.com possible in the first place. How ironic they may not be around for the last laugh.