How Have Google for Jobs Listings Changed Over 6 Months?
What are we doing here?
Six months ago we took a look at the competitive landscape within the “Google for Jobs” (G4J) widget for a very general term within 4 large metropolitan cities within the U.S.: “Part Time Job in Chicago, IL,” for example. The clear winners were among some of the larger, legacy players in the game.
Now that time has passed, what do those search results look like now? Are the “winners” still on top? If not, what changed? Let’s dive in!
How should I read these charts?
We’re comparing “share of voice” for positions within each of the job detail views for all the jobs that show up in the widget for a given query. Using our Forage SEO reports, we counted all the possible buttons shown in all of the jobs, then we calculated what percentage of those buttons were occupied by each company. A company can only show up once for each job, so no company could get anywhere near 100%. For this exercise, we just want to track who is showing up the most often. Back in February 2022, we looked at the top 20 of those companies…and now we’re revisiting them.
Part Time Jobs in Los Angeles, CA
Six months ago, Snagajob was the clear leader. As we can see below, that has changed dramatically.
Who’s on top now?
There are two takeaways here:
- There isn’t one site leading the way. There is a broader spread of sites among all the buttons.
- The absolute explosion of TV-station sites showing up in the widget. More on that later.
Part Time Jobs in New York, NY
Six months ago, Snagajob was again the clear leader. Opposite to what happened in LA, Snagajob has increased it’s hold on the NY part-time jobs listings.
Who’s on top now?
For all intents and purposes, most of the major players are all there again six months later. In these first two cities, one can’t help but notice Tarta.ai’s continued growth.
Part Time Jobs in Chicago, IL
ZipRecruiter and Tarta.ai made clear strides over the past six months. I feel a trend here, folks.
Who’s on top now?
Oh hi again, Tarta,ai! I would also point out that we see another TV/Radio outlet showing up in the top 20 now. There are several other outlets among those below the top 20.
Part Time Jobs in Houston, TX
Here we see another example of the landscape becoming more broad. ZipRecruiter and Tarta.ai again are reaping the rewards.
Who’s on top now?
As we said, the top 20 here is a little more democratized that it was six months ago…much like we saw in the Los Angeles data.
Part Time Jobs in Phoenix, AZ
The trend of Tarta and Zip taking a greater share….
Who’s on top now?
Here again, we see the smoothing-out of the data so that one site isn’t getting as much of a dramatically larger share.
So What Did We Learn?
Clearly, the G4J widget is just as fluid and competitive as the famous “10 Blue Links.” What can we take away from this data?
Winners and Losers
We definitely saw Tarta.ai and ZipRecruiter making big strides over this time, while some of the other major players (especially in the part time jobs space) lost some visibility. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean one site is doing something better than another…
…Broader Results
With one exception, it looks like Google is trying to give more impressions to a broader set of sites. If this hypothesis is correct, then the sites that are slipping a bit might not have done anything wrong, but have just been victim to a subtle algorithm change.
The Rise of the TV/Radio Sites
There has been an explosion of TV/Radio sites showing up in these results. My guess is that these sites have an authoritative (part of a trusted media entity) and local component that is causing them to appear as solid choices as Google continues to again broaden those results. It will be interesting to see if they remain popular during the next 6 months.
As always, contact me if you’d like to see some reports for YOUR job board. We’re happy to talk to you about pulling some of this data for you. Thanks! -ken