MercuryNews.com reports that Yahoo is scraping jobs from employer websites and other website to beef up its job database at Hot Jobs.
HotJobs is using Yahoo's Web crawling technology to search for job openings listed on employers' Web sites and other sites. It then "scrapes" those listings into its own database, where it can share them with its users for free.
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.
HotJobs is offering the free listings partly in response to competition and to increase its market share. But analysts say the free scraping could undercut the paid business, even though some employers will still pay money for other services, deeper relationships with prospective employees and higher rankings on the page.
While this certainly could increase the value of the job database it could also make employers decide not to spend money if the jobs will show up on Hot Jobs just by placing the job listings on their own website. However, if it increases traffic to the jobs database Yahoo might be able to charge more for highly visible listings. Yahoo also has to make sure they are taking jobs from sites that approve of the scraping and that they are not guilty of content theft.
