[tyingq]

Mystified by the downvote. Matt Cutts talked about the unintentional SEO advantage of exact match domains, publicly, and later they released an algorithm change to fix it.

And, I was "pretty sure", but searched a bit. My memory was right. Browsers used to tack ".com" onto things you would type into the url bar. The search box was separate at the time. Firefox, for example, had a setting called "browser.fixup.alternate.enabled" defaulting to "on" that made this the default behavior.

These kind of domains did, at one time, have a notable built-in advantage.

[H4CK3RM4N]

These domains would still have their advantage if they managed to get big before the omnibox took over, wouldn't they?

[tyingq]

If they established a following, yes. Someone mentioned "blinds.com", still #1 for "blinds" in the US. Furniture.com is also ranking well for "furniture". The number one result for "cars" is "cars.com". Hats.com is #2 for "hats", and so forth...