Yahoo’s Search Share Continues to Increase Since Firefox Deal

We reported about Yahoo’s impressive gains in its U.S. search market share after securing a default deal with Firefox last month, and new statistics released by StatCounter indicate that the company’s share continued to increase.

The web measurement firm wrote that Yahoo had 10.9 percent of the search market in January, marking “its highest U.S. search share for over five years.” This statistic shows a significant gain from StatCounter’s report that Yahoo had an 8.6 percent share this past November.

What about Google?

According to StatCounter, Google fell below 75 percent of the U.S. market share in January, which is the first time that this has occurred in five years. This statistic shows that while Yahoo continues to gain market share, Google continues to slip, and it seems clear that this is due to Yahoo’s default search engine deal with Firefox.

To counter this movement, Google recently launched a campaign to show Firefox users how to switch their default search engine back to Google. However, it appears that this isn’t working, at least not yet.

“Some analysts expected Yahoo to fall in January as a result of Firefox users switching back to Google,” said Aodhan Cullen, Chief Executive of StatCounter. “In fact, Yahoo has increased U.S. search share by half a percentage point.”

Digital marketing experts are certainly taking note of these changes. Some analysts are speculating that a recent weaker-than-expected earnings report from Google is indicative of the fact that the company is spreading its initiatives too wide. From self-driving cars to wearable computers, some industry insiders feel that Google may be taking its core business too much for granted, and Yahoo’s search gains show that it’s possible for other players to chip away at the company’s control of the U.S. search market share.

Still, there is no question that Google remains the king of search, at least for now. In January, StatCounter reports that Google had 74.8 percent of the U.S. search market, with Microsoft’s Bing at 12.4 percent and Yahoo at 10.9 percent.

One thing that’s clear is that the deal with Firefox is responsible for Yahoo’s recent gains. “When we removed Firefox usage from the U.S. search data, Yahoo’s gains and Google’s losses were erased,” explained StatCounter’s Cullen. “This highlights the importance of the default search option and the significance of the upcoming Safari search deal for the major players.”

Considering the fact that Firefox generates only about 14 percent of internet traffic in the U.S., this deal alone cannot push Yahoo to the forefront of search. However, industry experts are reporting that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is now focused on following up on the Firefox deal by trying to convince Apple to switch to Yahoo Search from Google as its default search engine when the Google/Apple five year contract comes up for renewal this year.

Apple does already have a strong relationship with Yahoo as the default data source on iPhones for the device’s stocks and weather apps. If Mayer can secure a deal with Apple to make Yahoo the default search engine on its Safari browser on the iPhone and iPad, the company may be able to exponentially build on its recent search market growth. Although some industry experts feel that it’s unlikely that Yahoo will secure this deal with Apple, the company appears to be focused on achieving this goal. It will be very interesting to see what happens next!