Blog Search Gets Easier and Better– with Google

The big daddy of search has recently launched its blog search and it works great ! I definitely like the clean interface and the way the results are shown.

Joel Cheeseman has an interesting take on the effect this could have on the online recruitment marketplace. We in the recruitment industry definitely need to give it a serious thought and, maybe, come up with ideas on how to leverage it.

What I will comment on is the crystal ball this offering seems to be for providing vertical search for other content. Say, oh, jobs for example.

Do a search and you'll see how the results are served. You'll notice results take you to actual blog entries and not homepages of blogs - just like they might take you directly to job listings. You'll notice results are incredibly timely.

You'll notice that results are ranked by relevancy. This is a big difference from most of the other blog search engines like Technorati, which default to a date-based sort.

This kind of ranking should be the secret weapon to Google’s blog search success. From limited testing, it appears to be a combination of timing, links, and keyword frequency.

And if you think of this in terms of job postings, the relevancy issue becomes very important. Here's an example: Do a search for online recruiting.

You'll notice that this very blog (Joel Cheesemans) owns a lot of real estate on page one. Am I the only one blogging about online recruitment? Of course not. But you may not know that looking at the results.

Could an employer leverage the same optimization tactics in a vertical search for jobs and push their competition down the ladder of results? You bet they can. And I think savvy employers will do just that.

You'll also notice the ability to get results via your favorite RSS feeder. Say goodbye to e-mail alerts.

For Monster, CareerBuilder, SimplyHired, Indeed, your local newspaper, etc., Google's move shouldn't be a surprise, but it should certainly be a wake-up call to what their futures may hold. In India Naukri, Timesjobs, Jobsahead, Newspapers would be equally affected as broadband becomes cheaper and easily available at low cost across the country. The 800-pound gorilla may soon be coming to their neighborhood too.