Monster and Indeed: Clash of the Jobs Titans?

 On July 27,2011, Michael Glenn on his blog “Glennlist” suggested that Monster.com has blocked Indeed.com from indexing its jobs. Is it true? There has been no official word from either company (that we know of) about the change. However, a few quick searches for Monster jobs on Indeed seem to show that they are not indexed.

Note: this could be a technical error or a small quirk. As of 7/29/2011, we do not have a source confirming any change. Monster’s jobs don’t appear to be indexed by Indeed.

Over the past few years, Indeed.com has grown into (by some measures) the leading jobs site in the USA. It did so through a process very much like Google. Indeed “indexes” jobs around the web, meaning that they capture jobs from around the web and then allow users to search that content. They display a small snippet of text with a link leading directly back to the original source of the job, whether job board or employer, again in a very similar method as Google. The job search engine has proven incredibly popular among users, who go to Indeed to find with “one search” – “all jobs.”

In much the same way as Google once angered Ebay, one of its largest advertisers, by offering a competing payment service instead of being just a search engine, Indeed has alienated many of its job board clients by offering resume upload and direct job posting instead of being just a simple index of jobs.

If this change is in fact true, it is not surprising. The top job boards  are in fierce competition with each other and they now face new competitive pressures from social networks. LinkedIn recently shut off access to Monster’s BeKnown service for terms of service violations – traffic and API partnerships wear thin when both sides are fishing in the same pond.

We will see soon whether this is a technical glitch or the start of a major battle.