Funny as they always seem to forget the hardware side of search engines. Google was incredibly fast compared to its competitors because they were among the first to store their whole index in RAM rather than on hard drives. They were among the first to install huge data center with computer blades that could be changed in an instant in case of failure. As an early user, I was on board as early as 99, I was amazed by the response speed of Google and its bare style quite dépouillé.