Yahoo’s Search Share in the U.S. Grows after Partnering with Mozilla; Google Drops

Mozilla’s deal with Yahoo seems to be making a difference, as Yahoo’s search share in the United States has reached its highest since 2009, according to statistics provided by website traffic analytics firm StatCounter.

StatCounter revealed that as of December 2014, Yahoo saw an approximately two-point gain in the U.S. search market, rising from 8.6% last year to 10.4% at present. Google, the leading search engine, saw a slight dip from 77.3% last year to 75.2% at present. The information is based on more than 15 billion page views per month to over three million sites.

Figure 1 (Source: StatCounter)

Figure 1 above shows that Google still dominates U.S. search share by a very wide margin, but since the deal between Yahoo and Mozilla took effect in December last year, Yahoo has jumped to its highest search share in over five years.

In a comScore report published prior to the Yahoo-Mozilla integration, Google held a 67% share, Bing 19.6%, and Yahoo 10.2%. [See Figure 2]

Figure 2 (Source: comScore)

Noticing the significant impact of the move, Aodhan Cullen—CEO of StatCounter—commented that, “The move by Mozilla has had a definite impact on US search. The question now is whether Firefox users switch back to Google.” StatCounter noted the only 12% of Internet usage in the U.S. was represented by Firefox users last December.

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, stated that signing the five-year contract with Mozilla was “the most significant partnership for Yahoo.” She added that the company will also be including an improved search experience for Firefox users.

Apart from Google and Yahoo search share results, StatCounter also revealed the current standing of the other major players in the industry, such as Microsoft-owned Bing (with 12.5%), and the rest of the search engines, including Ask Network (representing 1.9% of search share).

Do you think Yahoo’s search share gain should really be attributed to its recent partnership with Mozilla? Let us know in the Comments below.

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