Yeah, this is completely wrong. I watched Google grow up having worked in the area and they didn’t have any marketing at the beginning. They first became the best search engine many years before they started adding ads and well before their IPO.
Just as significantly, the search results were also uncluttered, and "good enough".
This approach was absolutely critical when they started out, when people would most often be using 56k modems, where every byte had a real impact on the end user experience.
Yes, every byte mattered. I was there. Only "early adopter" types were "in it for the speed." Everyone else used what was there. Everyone that was online, as most weren't.
They got larger maybe because they also kept going (didn't have a choice; tried to sell early on for pennies, though they spin the story to distract from what happened). The other engines were bought or sold out.
The death of many companies during the bust also made room for them and they were likely the face of a group effort to "keep it all moving." Facebook was a similar face.
It's funny how knowing makes it seem you don't know. You sound naive and brainwashed. But all it does is once again show how powerful an illusion can really be. I'd (and did) say similar things if I didn't dig deeper.
Being the best search engine was irrelevant to their rise. It's just a thing that happened to also (supposedly) be there.
Supposedly, as its ranking algorithm was so heavily gamed by 2007 (already risen; popularity incentivized effort to game) it was a complete joke. Powerful illusion again, as they just covered it up and moved on. Also, internal tests from around 2009-2010 showed Bing was seen by users as producing better-quality results.
Not only did they not have much marketing at the beginning, they also didn't have many users.
No, you are entirely wrong. There's no part of your "analysis" that has any relation to reality. I don't understand why you keep insisting.
(I worked for two of Google's competitors in the years where they grew from a student project to a huge business. I had the opportunity to take a peek of the code of two other competitors. Many of my former colleagues helped build Bing. I also worked at Google for a few years. I was there so I would know something about it)
