Interesting perspective.

I was in SF at the time, and remember Ask Jeeves, Inktomi, Alta Vista, Yahoo, etc.

Google's attraction at the time was not necessarily that it found you the best site for the information you sought, but that it was simple, uncluttered, and more varied. Yahoo, for example, lead you through a tedious "tree" of options, whereas Google allowed you to choose for yourself.

After all, how were you to know that the links provided by Google were any better than those provided by others?

In other interpretations of Google's success is the auction/bidding model for the advertising it did show. This was apparently so successful that it forced Google to become public, i.e. that the revenue it generated prevented Google from continuing to be a privately-held company. Others here might have a better insight into this aspect of Google's success.

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supportengineer a day ago | parent [-]

Privately-held companies are allowed to have revenue.

	▲	pcrh 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To clarify, reporting requirements for private companies are minimal below a certain level of revenue. Once that level is passed, they need to file. Google withheld how well its advertising was doing until that threshold was crossed, and it was a surprise to many how much money it was making. This was before its IPO in 2004.