Our shortest month of the year – February – always tends to have a drop in traffic month-over-month.     Of the 24 aggregators we’re tracking here in the US, only two had postive traffic gains in February.

Historically, January has a spike in traffic across most job boards, job aggregator sites and niche boards.   December tends to trail off near the holidays — and the new year’s resolutions are in full effect as the calendar turns towards January.   

Here in the United States, we’re tracking 23 job aggregators on a month to month basis:

Source:   Google Ad Planner, January 2010

Unfortunately, I get to deal with loads of job board and job aggregator salesman.   Nice folks for most part, but persistent as hell….     Once they have their hooks in you, you can expect a call a week until the grim reaper comes.

Invariably, these discussions turn to web traffic, unique visitors and how many job seekers their property can provide.   Here’s where the “tall tales” start:

• “Last month we had a million unique visitors” …  (yet NONE of the web measurement houses had you as high as 400K)
• “I see you advertise on XYZ — but according to Alexa, we have more traffic than them”
• “Quantcast’s methodology under reports our traffic.”
• “We outrank them in Compete.com”
• “Their methodology is flawed.  Our internal numbers are double what comScore reports”

Web measurement is a very complicated business.   Quite frankly, there are too many third party web-measurement houses — each with their own methodology of counting visitors and job searches.    Depending on the research house, traffic statistics can differ wildly across different media properties.  

Job board salesmen seize on these differences — and use them to their advantage whenever possible.  “Muddied waters” can work to their advantage.

Here at JobAggregators.com, we’re partial to Google Ad Planner for traffic and demographic statistics.  Google Ad Planner data is estimated, based on an automated analysis of millions of search queries and site visits.   More importantly, publishers can choose to share their Google Analytics data with Ad Planner to provide the actual number of unique visitors and page views.   By replacing Ad Planner traffic estimates with actual data measured directly by Google Analytics, job boards and aggregators can provide advertisers with more accurate site traffic information.

I should note that the biggest sites aren’t necessarily the best for your audience — and you can cobble together a terrific campaign with a host of smaller sites that convert job seekers into applications and hires. 

Media measurement will continue to be muddied for the near future, but the next time a media property calls you and tries to baffle you with statistics — ask them to verify their traffic with Google Ad Planner.     In the long run, you’ll most likely prefer working with more transparent media properties.

Reviewing the October traffic statisitics in Google Ad Planner, the Canadianjob aggregators up north have grown considerably in the last year.   Here are the unique visitors for October, 2009:

1. Workopolis (http://www.workopolis.com) - 1,900,000
2. Canada Job Bank (http://www.jobbank.gc.ca) - 1,500,000
3. Monster (http://www.monster.ca) - 1,300,000
4. Jobboom (http://www.jobboom.com) - 570,000
5. Eluta (http://www.eluta.ca) - 530,000
6. WowJobs (http://www.wowjobs.ca) - 510,000
7. Career Builder (http://www.careerbuilder.ca) - 430,000
8. Indeed (http://ca.indeed.com) - 420,000
9. Simply Hired (http://www.simplyhired.ca) - 320,000
10. CanadianJobs.com (http://www.canadianjobs.com) - 110,000
11. All Star Jobs (http://www.allstarjobs.ca) -  69,000
12. CanadaJobs.com (http://www.canadajobs.com) - 57,000
13. Vicinity Jobs (http://www.vicinityjobs.com) - 14,000

Both Eluta and WowJobs have recently supassed CareerBuilder’s traffic…with Indeed and SimplyHired strong on their heels.   We expect the gap to narrow in 2010…with the job aggregators continuing to take market share from Workopolis and Monster.

Here’s some of the big differences between the job boards and job aggregators:

Contracts –  Job Boards require yearly contracts.  Absolutely mandatory.   With the job aggregators, there is no time commitment and you can cancel anytime.      Advantage: Job Aggregators

Pricing Model  –    Job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder have a pay-per-posting model.  Depending on your market, you can expect to pay anywhere between $200 to $420 per posting.     Job aggregators don’t charge per job listing but have a pay-per-click (PPC) pricing model.     They only charge when a job seeker clicks an ad to visit your website.    In other words, you only pay when they deliver results.   Advantage: Job Aggregators

Job Posting Sources — Job aggregators source jobs from THOUSANDS of sites — including major job boards, niche job boards, staffing firms, associations, government agencies and direct employers.  Job boards include only jobs that have been posted (advertised) on their site.       Advantage: Job Aggregators

Include Jobs For Free –  Can you include your company’s jobs on CareerBuilder or Monster for free?   Fat chance.     Advantage: Job Aggregators

Apply Process  –     For the major job boards, the job seeker applies from job board.   The aggregators send the job seeker to your site to apply.    Advantage: Job Aggregators

Job aggregators are simply search engines for jobs.   They crawl and aggregate job postings and job content from thousands of individual sites, including:

• Major job boards - Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs
• Direct Employer Career Sites - General Electric, Ford, Accenture, IBM, Federal Express, etc.
• Niche/Industry-Specific Job Boards – Nurse.com, Jobs in the Money, Dice, AllRetailJobs.com, etc.
• Professional Association Job Boards - American Physical Therapy Association, American Bankers Association, American Bar Association, etc.
• Local/Regional Job Boards – FloridaJobs.com, DenverJobs.com, etc.
• Newspapers – Seattle Times, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, etc.
• Staffing Agencies – Kelly Services, Manpower, KForce, Adecco, etc.
• Federal and State Agencies – Department of Agriculture, US Post Office, State of Florida, etc.
• State Job Banks – WorkInTexas.com, Georgia Department of Labor, Michigan Talent Bank, etc.

A job aggregator pulls all of these job postings into one database for the job seeker.   For the job seeker, the major advantages a job aggregator provides over traditional job boards include:

• Comprehensiveness – The aggregators provide a comprehensive list of jobs compiled from all the relevant job sites.
• Saving Time – Rather than checking dozens of job sites, a job aggregator serves as a one-stop-shop.  Job aggregator sites enable the job seeker to search a large number of job postings in one search.