It goes without saying that Google is the most widely used search engine around the world. The common phrase for searching something online is “Google it,” which goes to show just how well established Google is in the search market. Its competitors have been trying to claw black and the effects are becoming visible. Last month Google lost the most share in the search market since 2009, this allowed Yahoo to post its largest share gain.
Data from analytics firm StatCounter shows that as of December 2014 Google’s share of the U.S. search market stood at 75.2 percent, down from 79.3 percent a year back, on the other hand Yahoo jumped to 10.4 percent in December 2014 from 7.4 percent in the previous year.
This means that Google is at its smallest share of the U.S. search market since 2008 at least, that’s when StatCounter starting tracking, putting Yahoo at its highest share of the U.S. search market since 2009.
This might have something to do with the deal between Mozilla and Yahoo which ended up in Google being booted as the default search engine in Firefox web browser, a position it has enjoyed since 2004, in favor of Yahoo.
The move seems to have worked for Yahoo which struggles to cement its place in the search market, while looking at other avenues for growth and revenue. On the other hand it wouldn’t be too hard for Google to regain the lost share. The Android operating system and the Chrome web browser are two of the biggest weapons in its arsenal for diverting traffic to its search engine.