Yahoo is now resorting to asking users to switch their default search engine over to Yahoo Search.

Forget trying to acquire new users by providing a better a user experience – Yahoo are now practically begging searchers on Yahoo to “Switch now.”, making Yahoo their default browser because “Yahoo is the preferred search engine of Firefox”:

This new message stems from the fact that Yahoo, after having gained its largest share of the search market since 2009, as a result of outbidding Google to become Firefox’s default search engine, is now seeing a high level of users defecting over to Google!

Temporary Gains

It appears that the early gains in traffic Yahoo experienced after establishing their new relationship with Firefox were perhaps only temporary, as users are slowly switching back to their favourite search engine: Google.

Google Were Also Begging

Earlier this month Google were using a similar tactic to Yahoo, by dedicating a large portion of the top of their results page to asking users if they would like to switch their default search engine:

Both search engines seem to be employing increasingly desperate measures in order to influence Firefox users to switch over. Although Firefox possesses only around 16% of the browser market, both Google and Yahoo see great value in acquiring those additional users and are clearly prepared to go to great lengths to get them.