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What criteria is the comparison of job sites based on ?

But this is not usually mesearued in the same way by every job board. That is why Jobboard Finder analyzed certification methods from all over the world and chose SimilarWeb to provide objective and comparable figures. Jobboard Finder has also developed a powerful comparison tool enabling users to compare up to 4 job boards at once.

Traffic figures help compare job websites

Most e-recruitment media know the number of their unique users, total visits and page views. However some will only communicate figures that work to their benefit. They will also use the best ones from the past 24 months, especially if the traffic is going down or if they lead a big television campaign last year. This makes it difficult for the account manager to compare job sites.

Other job boards might provide such a large number of figures that they inundate the user. Some calculate the average number of applications received for a job advertisement in a specific field. But what if your company is not as popular as Coca-Cola©, would you reach the same amount of applications?

Marketing managers use different web analytics tools from one company to another which is why traffic figures cannot always be compared on an equal basis. We have listed more than 25 web analytic tools worldwide and that is besides internal tools.

The main web analytics tools are:

ABA (Australia) IBM Coremetrics Web SATI
Audiweb (Italy) Analytics Site Analytics (Burt)
Digital Analytix (SimilarWeb) KIA-Index Sophus 3
Digital Helix Net Solution Partner (NSP) Weborama
Ezakus Labs Nielsen Census Webtrekk
Google Analytics (SIS) OAS Analytics WebTrends
HBX Omniture SiteCatalyst (Adobe) Xiti (AT Internet)
IDFR    

Certification is a guarantee

Given the wide diversity of methods and tools used by job websites for traffic figures, some authorities decided to specialize in the certification of those figures, primarly on a national scale.

What really matters is not so much whether the data is perfectly accurate but rather whether it can be compared based on similar standards according to certifying authorities.

Authorities can:

Certify traffic data.
Certify a whole web analytics tool.
Measure traffic data directly on the website.

The main certifying authorities are:

OWA (Austria) Audiweb (Italy) CIM Métriweb (Belgium)
OJD Internet (France) ABA (Audit Bureau of Australia) IVW (Germany)
TNS - Gallup (Norway) TNS - Gallup (Finland) FDIM (Denmark)
TS Medierevision - Gallup (Sweden) Kia Index (Sweden) ABC (UK)
BRAT (Romania) OJD Interactiva (Spain) BPA (32 countries worldwide)

International initiatives: towards an international standardization

As certifying authorities operate on a national scale, there is a lack of standardization in terms of certifying methods on an international scale. However, the International Foundation of Audit Bureaus of Circulation (IFABC) requests that members apply common standards such as:

  • Common definitions of “unique visitor”, “visit” or “page impression”;
  • The exclusion of internal traffic and robot or automatically generated page impressions;
  • The use of site-centric methods that usually include page tagging.

Here are some examples of definitions provided by the IFABC.

Page impressions: A file, or a combination of files, sent to a browser as a result of that browser’s request being received by the server.
Visit: A series of one or more page impressions, served to a valid browser, which ends when there is a gap of 30 minutes or more between successive page impressions for that browser.
Session: A series of page impressions served in an unbroken sequence from within the site to the same browser.

A unique way to compare job sites on objective criteria

Jobboard Finder chose SimilarWeb, leader of digital measurement and analytics. Launched in 2009, SimilarWeb provides services in web analytics. The company applies its user centric measurement method all around the world, which provides Jobboard Finder with comparable traffic figures from hundreds of job boards.

With SimilarWeb, Jobboard Finder can publish unbiased traffic figures based on similar standards. This means job boards can now be compared on an equal basis.