AOL and Google have announced a five year renewal and expansion of what was described as “one of the largest and longest-standing partnerships in Internet history,” stating that the deal has now been extended to include mobile search, underpinned by a revenue-share agreement. The move comes as AOL “renews its focus on mobile apps and content” – it was also announced this week that it had acquired social networking start-up Rally Up to further this. The Google partnership is global in focus.

AOL has recently been ramping-up its activities in the mobile space, including the launch of apps for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone devices and the appointment of a former Palm executive to head its mobile business. It has also revamped its smartphone portal to provide an improved experience to users of HTML5-capable devices. In the mobile market it is facing tough competition from rivals including Google itself and Yahoo! among others, although the partnership with Google for mobile search will provide it with some stability in this activity – especially considering Google’s established strength in this field.