No Stupid Questions
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I remember growing up with the earlier Search engine and then Google game along.
Google had massive selling points at the time: a clean interface that was quick to load (remember it was dial up era for most people!), unobtrusive text ads (most engines were filled with images pop ups and pop unders like the worst ad filled sites of today without ad blockers) and the key was tge search results were good. Pretty much ever search, you'd find something useful on the first page if not the first result. It was SO much easier than the other engines where you had trawl hard and keep changing your search terms.
Google made search easy and unobtrusive. I used to use AltaVista, Lycos, Yahoo and AskJeeves before google. Once google arrived I literally just used google - I didnt need to use 3 or 4 engines to get what I wanted.
The other search portals tried the trick of bundling email and chat clients and news etc. Google was just search, and then eventually an unobtrusive news tab. And when gmail launched email, they promised 1GB storage for free and forever increasing in size, with a clean interface.
Google won because they offered people what they wanted, without the in your face ads. And they really got in the background that the user is the product and monetized all our data - without us realising.
And they used their success to establish dominance, buying ad providers, veonf aggressive in selling ads, and crucially being successful in click throughs. People ignore colourful picture ads, theyre just annoying, but they click through sponsored search results.
Others have tried to copy the formula - look at Bing - but its hard to displace an encumbant. And the old guard like Yahoo and Lycos etc didnt adapt fast enough, or made huge mistakes in using google search themselves and just trying to be portals. People cut out those middle men fast.