The internet has been experiencing a massive amount of duplicate job content over the past couple of years. No question this content has been used to help job seekers find jobs, unfortunately it has also been used to leverage traffic using duplicative content, extract job seeker information and create many other issues not intended in the free flow of job information.

How did this start?
Quick history.. In 2002 iLogos Research (now Taleo Research) performed research which illustrated that less than 30% of Fortune 500 companies' jobs were listed on the big 3 job boards. This research validated what most of the industry already knew and our Association had already acted upon. The predecessor to JobCentral, DirectEmployers Employment Search Engine, was created to index/spider 100% of the job content only from corporate career sites providing job seekers a clean path to ALL of the original jobs, not just a small chunk. This pure job content became very popular among job sites soon after DirectEmployers started providing a series of company xml feeds at no charge. The feeds were initiated to provide better content to job sites everywhere, moreover better market penetration for companies everywhere. Many job sites receiving this clean job content would then mix it with their own making it seem organic to their site (cross pollination).

The War for Content Heats Up!
The job search engine model seemed to be reinforced when Indeed and SimplyHired sprang onto the scene, and was fully validated when many new search engine-like sites, hungry for more and more job content, were soon to follow. Job boards needed to find a way to receive more content to keep job seekers returning, while exploring ways to game the young upstarts.

The War for Traffic Strives Through Duplication.
More job sites everywhere started mixing the corporate feeds with their very own content, cross pollination was happening everywhere. Job boards were also providing this mixed, now majorly duplicated content, to SimplyHired and Indeed. Why? If you provide thousands of jobs as traffic accelerators, through verticals,
you will no question receive heightened traffic results. But if you provide the cross pollinated content of hundreds of thousands of jobs your traffic could be accelerated 10 fold, or more. Why is this problematic? Duplication, moreover job seeker experience.

Where things went wrong. Keep reading...