Yahoo Sees Big Search Bump From Firefox Deal

Last month, Yahoo announced that it was replacing Google as the default search engine in the next/latest version of Firefox: Firefox 34. That position is now paying dividends for Yahoo according to new data from StatCounter released earlier today.

The analytics firm said that “Yahoo search was used three times more on Firefox 34 than on Firefox 33.” The installed user base of Firefox 34 is low given that it’s new and most users haven’t upgraded. In addition, Firefox’s US market share overall is roughly 15 percent.

StatCounter reported, however, that as a result of the new default relationship with Firefox, Yahoo search share on the browser has grown from 9.6 percent to 29.4 percent. By contrast, Google usage in Firefox 34 has declined to just over 63 percent.

What this communicates is that these “default” search relationships are still meaningful. And if Firefox 34 gains further adoption it will mean millions of additional monthly queries for Yahoo.

ComScore most recently reported the following U.S. search market share distribution: Google (67 percent), Bing (19.5 percent), Yahoo (10.3 percent). StatCounter shows Google with 78 percent, Bing with 12.4 percent and Yahoo at 7.9 percent.