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One of the things I like to tell new job board entrepreneurs is to try and buy an existing job board instead of building from scratch. You can do this a couple of ways.

1. Look on flippa.com for “used” job board.

2. Google the niche you want to enter and try to buy a site that is already indexed by google. You can usually find one on page 3 or 4 and offer them a few thousand to sell to you.

In case you cant buy one here is one site to get some good job board names.

www.sedo.com

Lately I’ve gotten a couple of emails from people who are thinking of registering a .jobs domain to start a job board.

My answer is forget about it.

Although these domains appear to be available from mainstream registrars, if you register one it will eventually be rejected by the company that manages those TLDs, Employ Media. Apparently not everyone has heard of the giant controversy surrounding this domain. When they first came out they were intended only for actual employers, no job board could buy them. That is until the Direct Employers association struck some kind of backroom deal to get their hands on thousands of domains for their exclusive use.

But the job boards protested and the use of these domains by Direct Employers is currently in review by ICANN. You can read more about this on ERE. I’m starting to see these sites pop up in various google results which is troubling since you can already find these jobs on the direct employers/jobcentral sites. Can you say duplicate content?

Hey google, whats up with that?

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The NY Times has a blog that critiques websites and I stumbled across this post about a site called DirectApproachSolutions.com that claims to be the ‘eHarmony of jobs‘.

The Times asked readers to comment on the site and they gave it scathing reviews but I wanted to chime in as well.

First of all, lets start with the domain name. Its WAYYYY TOOOOOOOOOOO LONGGGGGGGGGG!

The number one rule of picking a domain is to go as short as possible. Nmmber two is getting the words jobs or careers into it somehow. DirectApproachSolutions.com does neither. Nor does it give the visitor an indication of what the site does. Its a generic, unremarkable domain name.

Other problems I noticed:

• The browser title starts with “Job Search NYC”…if it’s a local site the homepage gives no indication of that.
• The logo is boring and generic looking.
• The homepage is text heavy and does not draw the users eye to any one area of the page.
• The premise: the online job search industry is littered with a long list of companies that claimed to be the eharmony for jobs.  Jobster, RealMatch, Climber…to name a few. The idea never really caught on with job seekers or employers.

So you want to start a job board? Well you’ll need a good domain name. And that domain MUST be filled with your primary keyword phrase. Actually its not mandatory, but it helps greatly when it comes to crafting a good SEO strategy for your job board. If I had a choice I would always go with a keyword rich domain name so choose yours wisely.

My pal Jason Davis, former owner of RecruitingBlogs.com has one of the coolest portfolio of job and recruiting related domains for sale. Check it out below. Many of these domains rank #1 such as Graphicsjobs.com…”graphics jobs“.

If you are looking for a good domain name for the recruiting or job industry, please take a look below at some of the names I am selling now. If interested, please email me at Jason @ slouch.com

GraphicsJobs.com
StorageJobs.com
CircuitJobs.com
VideoJobs.com
SiliconvalleyJobs.com
DirectorJobs.com
SemiconductorJobs.com
BroadbandJobs.com
CommunicationsJobs.com
DSPJobs.com
JobTV.com
HardwareJobs.com
HumanCapitalJobs.com
Recruiting101.com
JobMagazine.com
JobResearch.com
JobReferrals.com
JobSpec.com
LocalRecruiting.com
RecruitingTips.com
MakePlacements.com
MemoryJobs.com
OpticalJobs.com
StockJobs.com
MPEGjobs.com
OpticalNetworkingJobs.com
ProcessJobs.com
RecruitingAds.com
RecruitingAssociations.com
RecruitingConferences.com
RecruitingBlogosphere.com
RecruitingGroups.com
Splits.net
Splits.org
RecruitingSplits.com
RecruitingWidget.com
RecruitingWidgets.com
RetainedJobs.com
SanJoseRecruiting.com
SourcingTechniques.com
TalentID.com

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JOB BOARD TIP: When starting a new job board one of my favorite things to do is buy up as many similar domain name combinations as the domain I am launching with.

Doing so allows you to slow down or prevent others from entering your space. Even if the domain is owned by someone else, offer to buy if you can. Then forward all those domains to your main one so that anyone typing it in gets to your site.

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