Come on Google. You’ve got to have more pride than that. After all, you’re the biggest search engine on the block, so get up off your knees and stop making a scene.
I am asking Google to have a little respect for itself because Google has put a big, new message above its organic search results that asks Firefox users to make Google their default search engine.
This message was come across this “request” by Matt McGee that seems to be almost pleading Firefox users to switch over to Google’s search engine. The message that appears within the Google Onebox style box asks users to “Switch your default search engine to Google” and has a button to “Learn how” and another button that says “No, thanks.”
Just to make sure this wasn’t some strange, one-time fluke, Danny Sullivan did a test and saw the same request as Matt. The request was also tweeted by others as well.
#Google REALLY wants #Firefox users to change their search engines settings, again prompting, now in search results!! pic.twitter.com/N7iAkZoDJK
— IPIXSolutions (@ipixsolutions) March 13, 2015
At first glance, I wouldn’t really think of it as any real act of begging on Google’s part, but it does seem strange that they would forgo over two inches of valuable search result real estate, just to get people to convert to Google as their default search engine. Back in November, Mozilla announced that they were dropping Google in favor of Yahoo as the default search engine. Could this have something to do with this request made by Google? Even if you look at the fact that Yahoo is “only” the third most popular search engine, they control about 16 percent of the market share. In reality, that’s still a fairly substantial amount of searches.
Ever since Mozilla’s deal went down, Yahoo’s search share rose from 8.6 to 10.9 percent in January, and according to comScore, their market share jumped from 10.2 percent in November to 11.8 percent in December. This does seem like a slightly threatening situation for Google, but things may not seem like Yahoo will replace Google anytime soon. There have been signs that Yahoo’s market share may have hit a ceiling recently when it comes to the bump from its deal with Mozilla.
Aside from the default search engine switch request mentioned above, there have been other documented messages that have been shown to Firefox users. But this is the first time a message was place blatantly inside Google’s search results.