Did Microsoft Buy Vaccination.com?

I was doing some domain research, and I noticed that Vaccination.com is now registered to a company known as Media Market of Boise, Idaho. As of September 24, 2009, the domain name was registered to Internet REIT, but on October 20, 2009, the domain name changed hands and is now registered to Media Market.

I don’t know anything about Media Market, but I do know they were the company who registered quite a few Bing related typo domain names just before they were acquired by Microsoft. Interestingly enough, Jamie reported that Microsoft recently acquired H1N1Symptoms.com, and the domain name resolves to the Bing results page for the search phrase “h1n1symptoms.” This is great for the owner of h1n1symptoms.us, as that website currently ranks #1 for the search term.

Prior to Microsoft’s acquisition of H1N1Symptoms.com, it was registered to TenPenny Group, a company that among other things, acquires domain names on behalf of Microsoft and other large companies.

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Written by Elliot on November 2, 2009 in Buying Domain Names, Internet Companies
Tags: microsoft, swine flu

Comments (11)

Shiphouse

November 2nd, 2009 at 4:04 pm

This leads me to believe that H1N1 is going to be worse than it is being made out to be…. Why would Microsoft take a punt?

Caesar

November 2nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm

I agree with Shiphouse,… something smells here

Elliot

November 2nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm

@Shiphouse and Caesar

Whether this is the case or not, there are a LOT of people looking for information about H1N1 because of all the news.

Michael Carter

November 2nd, 2009 at 4:17 pm

let’s put this in perspective – microsoft has $33b in cash – these strategic purchases are, more than likely, microscopic in size and overall importance.

Mike

November 2nd, 2009 at 5:32 pm

It would be nice to see what other keyword domains they are buying up to point at Bing results.

Shiphouse

November 2nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm

I am not criticizing the purchase; I would love to own vaccinations.com. For multiple reasons the name is fantastic (new flu strains every few years, the number of vaccinations that children need to receive, and parents growing concern regarding the safety of vaccinations).

I do not know how big Microsoft’s domain portfolio is, but it is my understanding they are just getting into the business. With that said, I don’t understand why they would even waste there time with a name like H1N1symptoms.com unless they had research to prove that this will be a strain of flu that is around for quite sometime.

To Mikes point when you have $33B in cash allot of projects become microscopic in size. For example if Microsoft had elected to purchase the top ten selling names this year ($12.75M per DnJournal) it would have only cost them 4bps in cash. So why not just jump in head first as opposed to wasting time with a “niche”? Unless of course they have reason to believe H1N1 isn’t just going to be a niche.

Steve M

November 2nd, 2009 at 9:41 pm

Let me propose another possible reason for this purchase.

Bill may be going to use it privately and at least in part for he & his wife’s wonderful non-profit work; which includes many millions of vaccinations for children the world over.

Richard

November 3rd, 2009 at 1:07 am

H1N1 does not just relate to swine flu. According to wiki H1N1 is the most common form of Influenza in humans. Swine flu is not as bad as they crack it up to be I believe. Remember how much money all the drug companies make off of their concoctions of unknown safety.

Kevin

November 3rd, 2009 at 3:30 am