I am very grateful – and humbled – that you took the time to reply in such detail, and for balancing my post with such a comprehensive answer. For me, your explainations are just what I was looking for. Sincerely, thank you!

Amitai.

If ACME Corp has an employee referral program, I would want all my employees trained to say: “It’s easy to apply, just go to http://www.acme.jobs.”

.jobs is about a direct navigational route to content that is 1) being actively promoted by the employer and 2) being sought by a target audience. The DNS is the Internet protocol for users to navigate to content on the World Wide Web (www). More simply put, the DNS is a utility. http://www.acme.jobs is about a destination that contains jobs content at ACME Corp. If I am a job seeker, whether active or passive, http://www.acme.com tells me, in no uncertain terms, that I am Not going to the jobs content of ACME Corp.

http://www.acme.com is a URL. http://www.acme.jobs is a URL. Both are part of the global DNS protocol. Both direct users to a destination that contains content. One destination contains jobs content and the other does not. The difference is very black and white and, quite honestly, doesn’t get any more complicated than this as a utility. If there is to be greater relevancy by search engines to .jobs domain names as some experts are already saying is evolving, then this will be the reason why.

Acme Corp is the party ensuring http://www.acme.jobs contains jobs content on an ongoing basis. We simply enable ACME Corp to acquire http://www.acme.jobs and then make sure it functions as a URL on the World Wide Web every time it is called upon to answer from anywhere in the world. Search engines are beginning to show trust in how we are enabling employers to acquire their domain name in .jobs. Our methods take steps to ensure that .jobs domain names contain jobs related content after becoming active and then called upon by users of the Internet. For search engines, it becomes a user trust factor and a core mission of the .jobs utility. Restrictive methods that take steps to ensure content objectives cut against sheer volume objectives. For the .jobs utility, volume should not be equated to adoption. As the licensed operator, it is a decision we have made and believe in more today than ever.

We are pleased with year 1 results, in some ways surpassing initial assumptions and/or business expectations. There’s no question we face challenges, no surprise there. It’s a big world and we have high expectations in what we are doing in cooperation with those that have, on their own, evaluated the .jobs utility and taken an early adopter position going to market in a manner they feel serves their own best interests and recruitment strategies.

Like any licensed utility, .jobs is here to stay. It is part of the core infrastructure of the Internet, no different that .com, .net, .org, and .edu. One URL method informs users to navigate to home page related content (certainly a useful utility for many purposes) and .jobs informs users to navigate to jobs related content. That’s the utility of .jobs, in the most simplest of terms, that has been made equitably available to all employer organizations the world over.

I would like to thank Amitai and the other commentators for having this discussion about .jobs. I hope my comments have contributed in a positive fashion. I also encourage anyone to feel free to contact me directly at rayATgoto.jobs.

Sincerely,

Ray Fassett
.jobs
216-426-1500 ext 129 (United States)

On the first point: agreed.

On the second: I don’t if anyone else is getting a better picture as to how this all could work out for the better, but I believe I am now. I just have to come up with a good reason as to why I remain unconvinced.

Thanks again.

Amitai

However, to the extent that search and aggregation are becoming bigger factors, the value of better ranking is not to be dismissed. From that perspective, it doesn’t matter if -people- know about the TLD, it only matters that the Googlebot does.

Thanks for your comments – Amitai.

If this does not happen then dot jobs is just a money making process for SHRM.

I have a couple of thoughts on your additional questions. I think that there are a lot of “what ifs” – which is exactly why the domain hasn’t reached critical mass yet.

1 & 2 & 3 – Yes – Acme would want to register despite their low number of reqs even though I don’t think that the ACMEs of the world will be the ones to push for general adopotion of the tld. IF the search engines increasingly recognize .jobs (like Colin explained for .edu) – then anyone with a dotjobs will have a greater chance of ranking higher with search engines and being found by the job seekers that are using them to find jobs. The registration of the name and the technical tweaks are relatively easy and certainly cheaper than the newspaper ads that ACME is no doubt running.

But the other component here (and the more critical one in my view) is not based on how favorable a tdl may or may not be to search engines. Search is by NO means the only way that job seekers look for jobs. .jobs needs to be marketed to and adopted by the jobseekers before it will ever become THE way to find job opportunities on a web site. SHRM supported this initiative for employers – I want to know who is going to do the major marketing to change the behavior of job seekers. It won’t all happen through search.

Shannon

1. Should your rationale be enough to persuade us – on balance – that this dot jobs domain isn’t still dead on arrival? Will Acme Corporation who may only have 10 or 20 reqs. a year want to go through all the initial hoop-la of getting a dot jobs domain?

2. If they don’t, are you suggesting their access to possible candidates is going to be further restricted because they may not appear as highly placed on the search engines?

3. Are you assuming a) search engines will overtake job boards as the preferred first stop for job seekers, and b) googling “mechanical+engineer+manager+jobs” will favor employers using a dot jobs domain over the most relevant results?

4. You say “in theory”. What will happen in practice?

I like to think if I’m still confused someone else out there is too.

Amitai.