Yahoo's HotJobs to Begin Crawling for Free Job Ads

By: E&P Staff Online powerhouse Yahoo.com recently announced the bold but potentially contentious decision to beef up the job listings on its HotJobs section by copying ads off of other Web sites.

The new initiative will use Yahoo's Web crawling technology to "scrape" job listings from employers' Web sites and others and deposit them in its own database. Users will then be able to browse or search through a wider variety of listings for free.

Anthony Soohoo, Vice President of Products and Strategy at Yahoo HotJobs, says the new strategy simplifies the job-hunting process. "The end user benefit is to save time and frustration," he says. ?At the end of our day we want to provide the most comprehensive and relevant experience for our users. And we think this is a giant step forward in terms of delivering on that vision."

Writing on www.siliconvalley.com, a blog owned by the San Jose Mercury News, Matt Marshall says "the move is significant because it is the first time one of the big three leading job sites -- HotJobs, Monster and CareerBuilder -- has incorporated free listings into its database. Until now, the three have required payment from employers, and that's what keeps them in business."

Marshall writes that Yahoo is offering free listings as a response to competition and as a way to increase its market share. But, he warns, "analysts say the free scraping could undercut the paid business."

What affect, if any, the new service will have on newspaper companies remains to be seen.

Jenny Sullivan, director of corporate communications for CareerBuilder.com, owned by Tribune, Gannett and Knight Ridder, said that she does not believe that HotJobs will negatively affect CareerBuilder.

"We continue to monitor and evaluate new developments in the industry," she said. "We have over 20 million unique visitors and over 1 million jobs. Our network spreads over 150 partners. We feel that our approach is effective and that's where we stand."

But Yahoo is not the only company scraping job ads and listing them for free. Start-ups Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com already pull listings from thousands of sites, not always with explicit permission, and others are expected to follow suit.