I’ve been reading many articles about Microsoft’s $80-$100 million marketing campaign and about how Bing’s search market share continues to grow. If this trend continues even when the marketing campaign ends, this could be very good news for generic .com domain investors.

Based on a small sampling of searches I tested, it seems that Bing gives generic domain names higher rankings than Google or Yahoo. It’s the case with my websites, Burbank.com, Lowell.com, Newburyport.com, and Torah.com. It’s also the case with a number of other generic .com domain names that I checked in both search engines.

Bing’s market share is still very low, so the impact is minor. In fact, I highly, highly doubt Bing will overtake Google in the near future. However, if Bing does grow and eats into Google’s share, and/or if Microsoft buys Yahoo’s search business and the generic domain name rankings of Bing transfers to Yahoo, we could see more companies valuing generic domain names for their SERP value.

Here’s a comparison of the rankings of a small number of websites with generic domain names in Google and Bing:

Casino.com: – Google: 6 – Bing: 1 for Casino
Burbank.com: – Google: 5 – Bing: 2 for Burbank
Lowell.com: – Google: 10 – Bing: 2 for Lowell
Newburyport.com: – Google: 8 – Bing: 2 for Newburyport
Mortgage.com: – Google: 9 – Bing: 1 for Mortgage
Soccer.com: – Google: 1 – Bing: 1 for Soccer
DogSupplies.com: – Google: 3 – Bing: 1 for Dog Supplies
Airfare.com: – Google: 7 – Bing: 1 for Airfare
Fly.com: – Google: 7 – Bing: 2 for Fly
Chairs.com: – Google: NR – Bing: 3 for Chairs
Torah.com: – Google: 20 – Bing: 8 for Torah
HomeFashions.com: – Google: 7 – Bing: 2 for Home Fashions

One thing that is especially good is that most of the websites above wouldn’t be recognized by consumers as the brand leader. In the Lowell market for example, most people would probably consider the Sun newspaper to be the market leader. Likewise, in the pet marketplace, people would probably choose Pet Smart or Pet Co as the market leader.

To me, this is common sense, but to many outside of the domain industry, it might not necessarily be standard operating procedure. While developing my geodomains, I worked with a number of local non-profit organizations in order to add free listings to my websites. Oftentimes, the organizations have a website which uses a .org domain name. Generally, I recommend that .com is used when available, but .org is the right choice for most organizations because of the trust factor and consumer awareness of the .org “brand.”

One thing which I’ve also noticed is that a lot of these organizations that use the .org don’t think about registering the .com of their website, and it’s available for anyone to purchase. This is bad in my opinion, and at the least, they should own the .com and forward it to their website. Not only are most people trained to type-in .com, but some web browsers automatically enter the .com at the end of a keyword string. Having the .com unregistered can lead to a bad web browsing experience if the .com is assumed to be the correct address.

Organizations who use .org domain names and leave the .com available to register are taking two risks. The first risk is that a visitor will assume .com, and when they type it in, they will be taken to a page that doesn’t resolve. Additionally, if they leave the .com available, someone with ill-intentions can register it and do a number of malicious things.

When I see this happen, I do my best to let the organization know that registering the .com is important, although I am somewhat surprised at the resistance. Recently, I noticed a few Jewish synagogues owned TempleBethXXXXX.org and the .com was available to register. I ended up buying these domain names and forwarding them on to the .org website as a friendly gesture without telling them. IMO, they probably won’t ever know, but if one person types it in, I am happy to help.

For those who are more technically inclined, I’ve also encouraged organizations to monitor the .com registration (if it’s taken and not developed) using DomainTools and to place a back order for it at Snapnames. Owning the .com is not essential for an organization operating online at a .org, but it’s important.

The publisher and editor of Elliot’s Blog is Elliot Silver.  There are several people who contribute and/or have articles and posts on this blog, making it one of the leading industry resources. Below is a list of Elliot’s Blog contributors:

Publisher and Editor: Elliot Silver – Founder of Top Notch Domains, LLC and Silver Internet Ventures, LLC.

Contributor: Jeff Behrendt of INForum.in

Contributor: Richard Douglas of Secure Host

Contributor: Rob Grant

Contributor: Steve Morsa

Contributor: Matt Bentley

Contributor: Pat Quinn

Contributor: Brad Larson

Contributor: Brett Lewis

Contributor: Craig Rowe