Search Engine Optimization News Blog

Other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the sole competitor for Mozilla’s Firefox, a new yet strong competitor has emerged for Firefox. The competition is expected to be real tough as this new product, Google Chrome, is a creation of Google who are already ruling the search engine world. Though there are other browsers like Safari and Opera, this open source browser is considered more serious and competitive as the probability of users who are already fond of Google trying the product is more when compared with other browsers. This would of course include users who are using Mozilla’s Firefox. This would obviously be a loss for Firefox to loose its valued customers. But Mitchell Baker, the chairman of the Mozilla foundation, says that she is not worried.

She has mentioned that Mozilla receives revenues from Google for shared advertising. This amount is generated when Mozilla Firefox’s users use Google’s built-in search engine made available in the home page of Mozilla’s Firefox. In this case, Mozilla just acts as an advertising partner for Google like many others over the web. Ms. Baker, though not satisfied, does not seem to be threatened about the market share of Google’s Chrome. Ms. Baker in an interview with ZDNet (a sister site of CNETNews.com) has spoken about Google, Google’s Chrome and the revenue generated from being their advertising partner as well.

Answering to a question raised on whether it is true that the browser search box and the start up page default to Google and about the revenue generated through this, she has replied saying, “That’s correct. But one thing most people forget is, we have an arrangement not just with Google but also with Yahoo.
The combination of Google’s market share and the default piece means the vast majority (of Mozilla revenue) comes from Google. We also get a small amount of revenue from Amazon.”

Explaining more about the basis on which revenue is generated by Firefox through Google advertising, she added, “It’s analogous to what you see on Web sites with Google Ad Sense (in which other sites show Google ads, and Google shares the resulting revenue when people click on those ads). It’s a mechanism for ad distribution.”

She agreed saying that Mozilla is mainly funded by ad revenue but she also made it clear that they are not worried about Chrome and its possibility to dry up the revenue generation. However, she explained that they are careful and are watchful. She added saying that they are happing about their growth in the share market and that they consider the growth to be healthy. She added saying, “The relationship between Google and Mozilla is good, in a business sense, for both organizations.”

She also said that Google’s Chrome has not affected the way Mozilla works. However, she said that they are eagerly looking for more innovative inventions from Chrome as this would benefit all other browsers in general.