Wanted to pass along the following article from SearchEngineLand…

A new study from Microsoft Research confirms what most SEOs have known for years—that domain names are a crucial element for capturing clicks and conversions from search results. Unlike what’s been published in most search marketing forums, however, this research was not focused on SEO techniques or search engine ranking algorithms, but rather on observed searcher behavior, offering insights about how people actually respond to what’s presented to them in search results.

Here’s the link to the Search Engine Land article….

Domain Name Matters: Searchers Pick Brand Over Quality, Study Finds

As well as a link to the research paper…

Domain Bias in Web Search

Update 10:15AM: Just saw that Michael Berkens covered the study last week in his ‘Microsoft’s New Study Showing That Domain Names Are VERY Important‘ blog post.