Microsoft® has purchased the domain name H1N1Symptoms.com and is using 301 redirection which sends visitors to the domain name to the search query h1n1symptoms (all together) on their search engine Bing.com .
H1N1Symptoms.com was first registered April 28, 2009 and was purchased by Microsoft on 10-5-2009. Microsoft once again used it’s secret buyer Tenpenny Group Inc. to make the purchase of the domain name at Sedo.com .
The term H1N1 Symptoms is one of the most popular searches relating to the H1N1 Flu. If you simply type h1n1 into Google.com, the first "suggested" results is h1n1 symptoms. Google displays these results based on what is most searched with the amount of terms you started to type in.
The purchase is a little surprising because of who purchased it, but it is also interesting to see Microsoft send it’s visitors to a search query directly on Bing. It does makes sense in a way, but again, is not something that is "normally" done by a search engine.
One reason why Microsoft may have purchased the domain name is because of Direct Navigation and it’s value. Microsoft may have "other" plans for the domain name as well but currently wanted to do something with the domain that is useful to the visitors of the domain at this point.
Microsoft did recently add a tool that helps you gauge based on symptoms if you have the H1N1 Flu. Microsoft placed this tool on it’s H1N1 Response Center site. Microsoft uses the domain name H1N1ResponseCenter.com which redirects users to https://h1n1.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx for this specific tool.
Microsoft may have similar plans for the H1N1Symptoms.com domain like they use H1N1ResponseCenter.com for.
In another story DotWeekly.com covered back in May of 2009, Blue String Ventures purchased the domain name SwineFlu.com for an undisclosed amount. Blue String Ventures also owns the domain name H1N1.com, BirdFlu.com and similar domain names.
Jason at GoDrops.com
That’s a weird thing to do… how much type-in volume would this have? It’ll be removed from the Google index… MS could’ve done better with this one.
steve fox
omg very weird. Microsoft is going crazy.