Category: Google

Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share

Post author By Ivan | JobsBlog.ie
Post date February 2, 2008
No Comments on Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share

Well, Microsoft tried really hard to develop their own MSN AdCentre to try to compete with Google AdWords. Years passing by, but a miserably low percentage of the online advertisers switched to Microsoft’s offering as opposed to Google’s AdWords. Microsoft thought it has a ‘channel’ via it’s MSN.com, and Hotmail. But Google’s Gmail actually managed to attract new users, with a smart marketing offers (2 GB of free space!) and a Anti Spam that actually works!

So if Microsoft wants to capitalize on it’s Investment in the AdCentre and also Live.com (that seems a bit lost or beheaded) they need to purchase someone who has visitors – to be able to display the adverts from their AdCentre customers. Yahoo? Well, if there is nothing better on the market, and there does not really seem to be, is a good choice. Yahoo has the experience (remember Overture?), and is has a much better search technology than that MSN ever managed to develop. In the last years the MSN search results are actually becoming more and more pathetic. Ok to be more precise – irrelevant.

So is it a good move for Microsoft to buy Yahoo?

For the Irish workforce it might actually be good. Since Microsoft has a strong presence in Ireland, while Yahoo never bothered opening an office here. I bet if the acquisition goes ahead, we will see some Yahoo jobs in Ireland as well.

Do you Yahoo?

Tags AdWords, Google AdWords, Microsoft, MSN, Overture, Search Engine, Yahoo

Blogs Google Jobs Recruitment Search Engine SERP

Irish Defence Forces Jobs

Post author By Ivan | JobsBlog.ie
Post date January 23, 2008
19 Comments on Irish Defence Forces Jobs

Just saw a quite unusual Google AdWords campaign for the Irish job advertising market. The Irish Defence Forces is advertising (and paying the TOP Google AdWords rate!) for their add to be displayed for the keyword ‘jobs’ in Google.ie.

Is this the first time a Governmental agency (or how do you call the Army?) has engaged in the recruitment advertising? Is it the case where Army (The Marines) goes first to the new territories, and the others follow afterwards?

Tags Defence Forces, Jobs, Military, Recruitment

Google Jobs Recruitment

Google Ireland Jobs

The Google Ireland Jobs page is designed in the traditional Google Design Stile. The only ‘Outstanding’ design elements Google Recruitment or Web Development department found appropriate to place on the site is a bit of the green font. Noticeable is also the usage of the word ‘Opening’ instead of the job. That is most likely the trace of some super-wise marketing agency, trying to avoid the connotation of job – work – long hours – low salary – slavery. Instead they call it an ‘Opening’ where one could build his career – success – happy family – new house – a Volvo Estate, two dogs, and a house in the suburbs.

A bit of showing off with the always suspicious: 10 Best Companies to Word For – Ireland 2007, awarded by the Irish Independent (presumably to the largest advertisers).

Striking is the Google’s complete ignorance of the SEO on its own recruitment pages.
The URLs like:
http://www.google.ie/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?dep_id=1054&loc_id=1110
http://www.google.ie/support/jobs/bin/answer.py?answer=74881

The non existence of the proper and relevant META and TITLES just shows how Google is the company that does not depend at all on the Search Engine Optimisation, but probably has a completely different set of problems like managing the volumes than the average recruiter.

The absence of any contact details, not phone, no email not even a physical address(???) just confirms the obvious problem with the quantity of applications.

From the usability point, there is no way for a job seeker to subscribe in any way. No email alerts and no RSS. That is a decision I do not really understand. It is like saying: “We do not want return visitors!”. Non inclusion of the RSS feed is probably the biggest mistake on the Google’s Jobs site.

There is also a greyed out footer on all the pages that reads:
To all recruitment agencies:
Google does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Google employees or any other company location. Google is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.
Perhaps the last sentence of that footer tells you about the business practices of the recruitment agencies Google has had to deal with.

Overall impression? Google’s Recruitment web site is the fastest recruitment web site. But there is a feeling that there is something missing here. The absence of any contact details is just striking. I believe it is unique in the Irish market, and that alone makes it hard/not acceptable. The absence of the RSS feed is also surprising from a 100% Web 2.0 company.

The extensive usage of Google AdWords to advertise this site puts other AdWords publishers in the recruitment industry in a disadvantage, since Google itself does not have to pay for it. In the same time it is competing for the positions in AdWords with its clients who pay big sums every month. It might be (or is it?) legal, but certainly is not moral at all.

Conclusion: One would expect Google should do better. Recruitment obviously is obviously falling far behind the strengths the company has in other fields.

Tags Google, Jobs, Recruitment

Google Microsoft

Google Microsoft Logo

I did see a lot of Google logos, but this one really made me laugh:

Go an make a search, see what it finds out!

Tags Google, Logo, Microsoft

Blogs Google Search Engine SERP

Jobs Blog Popularity

There is one thing one has to manage when his blog becomes ‘popular’. JobsBlog.ie is a bit more than a month old now. It tops several searches in the Google.ie search engine results page (SERP) for a a number of search phrases. That means traffic. Some wanted some not really.

Today I logged in to check if I got any comments on those few articles you can see published so far. And to my surprise – YES! There are 99 Blog Comments!

All excited I click to go to read them (and moderate), only to find out that I have 99 SPAM Blog Comments. So 100% of SPAM in the first month. Really poor quality of the response…

I guess it is a time to try to find a solution to prevent unauthenticated comments…

Tags blog, Blogs, SPAM

Google Jobs Search Engine SERP

Internet Activity, or ‘Will Irish Recruitment Agencies get the importance of the Google.ie Search Engine Ranking?

Post author By Ivan | JobsBlog.ie
Post date January 10, 2008
6 Comments on Internet Activity, or ‘Will Irish Recruitment Agencies get the importance of the Google.ie Search Engine Ranking?

What do people do most on the Internet? When asked, the response is the mixture of:
House hunting
Cars related searches
Jobs searches

Holyday related searches, mortgage, insurance are the second most important group.

Almost all the behaviour monitoring will record the same above activities. This is what we ‘admit’. In the same time Internet itself consists of more than 2/3 of some king of pornographic content. I wonder whom is that for?

Anyway, the major three activities, let us call them Property, Cars and Jobs here, and really very funny when it comes to the Irish Google placements (web site positioning) for the relevant key phrases. While Property and Cars have a 3 to 5 strong market leaders, and the rest of the first page of Google.ie search results is filed by the sites that just ended up there, the Jobs category seems to have a super strong competition (compared to the two other categories).

By default Google.ie shows 10 results of a search performed. So 10 web sites can be of the first page. The rest of the results has a far less ‘Visibility’. The top 5 or 6 pages are what was called ‘Above the Fold’ before, since ht monitor resolution would allow only the top half of the Google.ie results page to be displayed at a time. To see the rest, the user had to scroll down.

In general the people click more on the result positioned higher. The Number One listing in a Google Search Result is extremely important for any Internet related business. So if you are a Job board… you get the point.

Again the problem with the ‘Jobs’ market in Ireland is that there is currently about 35 web sites that would like to call themselves a Job Board. There is also about 400 Recruitment Agencies web sites that would benefit greatly from the high placement in Google.ie search engine results pages.

Historically looking, for the most important keyword for job searching in Ireland: ‘Jobs’ – there NEVER was a single recruitment agency on the first page of the Google.ie search engine results page. At least not in the last 5 to 7 years. That is simply because there are all those job boards filling up the spaces. To make the situation even more interesting every year there is more and more job boards in Ireland. Niche job boards are popping up like mushrooms all over. It really is not that easy to find the industry that does not have its own ‘Specialist Job Board’. Most of the strong industries have multiple niche job boards active today.

It really is interesting to see the recruitment agencies that are multimillion businesses paying for the advertising slots on a job boards that are a single man operation, or even someone’s ‘Second Job’.

I am really interested to see who will be the first Irish recruitment agency that will realise the importance of being listed on the first page of Google.ie for the phrase like ‘Jobs’, and actually manage to do it! Anyone ready to place a bet???