A couple of years ago, everyone was saying the game was over for the search industry. Yahoo! was declared winner and Excite, AltaVista, AskJeeves, and the others were far behind…until Google.

What was the difference? How about improved search relevance, simpler user interface, and a new business model.

In the job board or job search market today the big declared winner has been Monster, until…well, time will tell. Which factors will cause a transition, if any?

Lately the vertical job search we see a similar pattern as in pure search. Search relevance seems to be the first area that everyone attacked. Originating with the idea of DirectEmployers, today’s vertical search is everywhere. From simplyhired and Jobster to HotJobs and the recent relaunch of Monster’s flip dog

But from the user prospective, search relevance is not only the number of jobs available.
The interesting different approaches start with careerbuilder.com that approaches search relevance with their job recommendation engine, and Jobster with their social network approach. Jobster connects the concept of Vault or Wetfeet to the vertical search.

User interface is not always seen on the top of the list, except for simplyhired and indeed. Just compare their home page to Monster and you will get the feeling.

The last but most critical factor for long term success is the business model. There we have not seen any new strays from the traditional game. The only one we saw was covered in a previous posting we made here.

What has been learned from Google? Don’t sleep on your laurels.