Most of us by now know that Google has been promoting FireFox via the Google search bar plug-in, to the tune of $1.00 for every referral you give them that downloads the browser. Personally I’ve already collected a few dollars from referring to the download from one of my sites.

However, for but a brief moment Google stepped up it’s campaign by showing an advertisement on it’s Google search page. Being that this is by far the most used search engine this brief campaign could have been seen as an endorsement from Google by Thousands? Tens of thousands? of searchers in that brief time.

Don’t bother looking now, Google has already removed the ad, however if you would like to see a screen shot you will find one at www.spreadfirefox.com.

What makes this news is not that Google is promoting FireFox (Google and Microsoft are not exactly the best of friends), but that they are actually promoting a third party product on their search page. It is very rare that they promote any product on the search page and to the best of my knowledge this is the first for a third party.

A sign of things to come or just the desire to dig at Microsoft’s hold on the browser wars. Only time will tell.