Yahoo! has become a relevant search engine again
While Google remains the overwhelming search engine of choice in the US, Yahoo!’s 2015 surge hasn’t tailed off just yet.
Representing three-quarters of all searches, according to figures compiled by StatCounter, Google’s dominance shows no signs of fading any time soon.
However, the battle between Bing and Yahoo! for second spot has gotten interesting for the first time in years.
In January, Yahoo! rose to almost 11pc of all search share, its highest figure in five years, largely at the expense of Google, which dropped below 75pc for the first time since the figures were compiled.
Despite the rise, a recent Forbes article painted a fairly grim picture of Yahoo! since Marissa Mayer became the company’s CEO in 2012, alleging that profitability has dropped some 30pc – and maybe more – under her watch.
February’s US search engine market share
Nevertheless, these search engine figures have stayed relatively similar to January’s promising results, with Yahoo!’s performance catching the eye as it comes on the back of Firefox agreeing to a five-year partnership to host Mayer’s company as its default search engine.
“While Yahoo!’s search growth from the Mozilla deal has stalled, its share declined only slightly in February,” said Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, which monitors 15bn page views per month.
“It will be interesting to see if January was the month of peak impact for Yahoo! as a result of the Mozilla deal and whether it can maintain its gains over the next few months.”
Indeed on Firefox alone, Yahoo! represents well over a quarter – Google leads with 65pc, Bing trails with 6pc – with the browser generating 14pc of overall internet usage in February.
