As reported in our blog back in November 2014, Yahoo officially replaced Google as Firefox’s default search engine. The following months had shown that so far so good for Yahoo in this transition, showing two steady months of growth and an 11% increase in search query volume from December 2014 to January 2015.
However, February seems to have brought forth a shift in results for Yahoo; while some predicted the percentage to continue moving in an upward direction, there was in fact a 0.2% drop from January to February 2015. Many assume that this is due to “switchbacks,” those who opted to try out Yahoo but ultimately swapped back to the ever-so-trusty Google.
So, will we continue to see a decrease in Yahoo query volume over the next few months? Only time and numbers will tell, but with Google’s recent noticeably aggressive approach to persuade users to return, it seems fairly likely that the “switchbacks” will carry on.