Job boards and recruitment agencies could pay up to 10 times more to advertise online after Google announced changes on who could bid on Google AdWords.

Lewis Lenssen, managing director of Netizen Digital, a search marketing agency told Recruiter that currently job boards pay Google around 2p every time an internet user 'clicks through', on one of its ads. However, he predicted that the cost would rise to 10p or 20p after 5 May when the change takes effect.

Previously only the owner of a single brand name, such as Totaljobs, could bid for the right for its adverts to appear in the paid for areas of Google search results pages, Lenssen explained.

But from 5 May other job boards and recruiters would be free to bid against each other for names.

Lenssen said: "Introducing competition in this way will increase the cost agencies pay when jobseekers click on their ads because at the moment there is only one person allowed to bid so they are effectively paying the minimum pay per click price. "

Joe Slavin, chief executive of fish4 told Recruiter there was a danger that other job boards would be able to "siphon off" fish4 candidates by outbidding fish4 for its ad name.

However, Slavin predicted that the cost effect on recruitment agencies, that paid fish4 whenever a user clicked on their ad would be "minimal"

Slavin said; "We are focused on getting more bang for our buck, so I don't see it having any impact on our prices. If Google raises its rates, we will use Yahoo or Microsoft, as long as we get a guaranteed quality response."

The new Google policy applies to the UK and Ireland. In 2004 Google introduced a similar policy in Canada and the US.