Google Triples Its Spending To Keep Default Search Spot In Firefox

How important was it to Google to remain the default search engine in Mozilla’s Firefox browser? Important enough that Google agreed to pay three times more in this deal than it did in 2010.

AllThingsD is reporting that Google’s new deal with Mozilla is costing a cool $300 million per year. That’s about triple what Google paid in the previous deal: According to Mozilla’s 2010 annual report, Google accounted for about 84% of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue, which comes out to about $103 million.

Why did Google agree to triple its costs on Firefox when it has Chrome, its own growing web browser? AllThingsD says that both Microsoft/Bing and Yahoo were also in the running to get the default search engine spot in Firefox. Even though Microsoft still has the number one browser (Internet Explorer), its interest in Firefox is so great that Microsoft began promoting “Firefox with Bing” a couple months ago.

According to StatCounter, Firefox recently dropped into the third spot in overall browser share at 25.23 percent, just below Chrome’s 25.69 percent. Internet Explorer has 40.63 percent of the browser market worldwide.

As we covered on Search Engine Land, Google and Mozilla announced earlier this week that they’ve reached a new three-year agreement to keep Google as the default search provider in the Firefox browser.