Comment by jeb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeb | Hacker News Reader

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There are really only TWO decisions that google made that made them successful. When something works, people like to go back and look at complicated things and say that those are the reasons it worked. The reason that google beat the others were really very simple and they had to do with the front-end only:

1. They were the simplest to use at the time. All the other search engine things had a lot of frills and pages and ads and so on. Google was just very plain, and as a result, simple

2. By default, they included ALL the words you typed in. Competitors at the time were trying to maximise search results by searching for each word individually, which led to a lot of irrelevant results. Just by including all the words in the query, google had a much better hit rate

All the rest was unimportant. Those two simply front-end decisions made the google search engine loved by the geeky anti-corporate people who ruled the web at the time (slashdot, linux advocates), and they recommended it to everyone who was joining the net. By appealing to the geeks, who then acted as the authority figures to the normals, google was able to take over the search market back then.

It was really not that complicated.

I beg to differ.

First, it is simply not true that Google "included ALL the words you typed in". Google ignored "common" words like conjunctions and certain pronouns for a very long time.

Second, I think it's fair to say that Google's speed and quality of results were significant contributors as well.

Third, Larry's decision to make AdWords ads live immediately was, I think, one of the key factors in drawing users to AdWords.

Fourth, ad syndication through AdSense was a significant contributor to Google's revenues.

I could go on. I think it's nowhere near as simple as you say.

Adwords came MUCH MUCH later, when Google dominated the landscape. Of course, by all words, I don't mean useless words like conjunctions.

When people think back, they blur factors (like you are blurring adwords with googles initial success). I was there when Google took over, and it WAS as simple as I said.

They first had a popular search engine, and they built a good business on top of that. The business building part was complex, probably, but getting the search engine to be popular was just a front-end thing.

Googles speed was not relevant, Altavista and many other search engines prominently displayed how fast they were. There was a sort of speed competition at the time, so Google was not significantly faster than the others. Those other engines (like altavista) did not even have websites with lots of images or so, so it loaded just as fast as google.

Picking the right user-interface has been the reason for success for many companies. People will come and overcomplicate it later, but in the end, it was just the user-interface that made them win.

> Adwards came MUCH MUCH later

It's AdWords, not Adwards. And it launched in September of 2000, when Google absolutely did not "dominate the landscape."

Do you even bother to check your facts, or do you just make shit up?

In September 2000, Google was already the most important search engine out there. It was already successful, and adwords had nothing to do with its success. It had 20million in the bank already.

Please avoid the personal attacks, it's not good form.

In September 2000 Google had money in the bank only because it had closed a $25M VC round just over a year before. Its revenues were tiny. Its market share was tiny. It was not profitable. Its success was far from assured. By the time Google turned its first profit, the vast majority of its revenues came from AdWords. To say that AdWords had nothing to do with Google's success is akin to saying that Windows had nothing to do with Microsoft's success.

And personal attacks are not nearly as bad a form as promulgating demonstrable falsehoods as if they were facts.

It's market share was not tiny. It was growing rapidly, and was already dominating.

I think I've had enough of this argument. People like you are never wrong - you are arguing absolutely orthogonal to me, and punctuating it with personal attacks.

Growing rapidly is not mutually exclusive with being small. In fact, it's much easier to grow rapidly when you're small than when you're big.

Here's a reference in support of my position:

http://searchenginewatch.com/2165081

This article is from October of 2002, two years later than the time frame in question. At that time, after two years of exponential growth, Google's market share was 30%. In September 2000, Google was still an upstart. Three months earlier the big news was that Google had beat out Inktomi for a contract with Yahoo:

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-242392.html

Google's overall market share at the time was so small that the press reports don't even mention it. Google didn't even register on anyone's radar as a major player.

Can you cite any references to support your claim that Google was "already dominating"? No, you can't. Because they weren't.

> I think I've had enough of this argument

A common tactic from someone trying to defend an untenable position.

> People like you

Excuse me? Weren't you saying something earlier about personal attacks?

Here: http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease25.html

Google was supplying the search results for Yahoo in the year 2000, long before Adwords. Yahoo was one of the biggest portals at the time. I really don't understand how you can say Google was not relevant before Adwords.

Google was the king of the search business back then, and that was long before Adwords came along.

Adwords was not critical to Googles share when it came to searches. Google was growing massively, everyone was paying attention to Google long before Adwords came on the scene.

Adwords allowed Google make money, but it did not contribute to growth in search.

Who was the major player in search at the time Adwords was introduced? Ask.com? Lycos? Altavista? Or perhaps, Yahoo, powered by Google?

Your position has gotten a bit blurred the more you argue. To clarify again:

- My statement is that Google was a rapidly growing search engine because they made the right UI decisions

- Your statement seems to be that without adwords, Google would have stopped growing and ultimately failed

Am I understanding your argument wrongly? Because it does not make much sense.

> Adwords was not critical to Googles share when it came to searches

Even that is arguable, but that is not the topic under discussion. The topic under discussion is this statement you made:

"There are really only TWO decisions that google made that made them successful"

> Adwords allowed Google make money

What in the world do you think "success" means? Despite the fact that this forum is called Hacker News, it isn't really about hacking per se. It's about starting companies. "Success" in such endeavors is not measured by how many people use your product, it is measured by whether or not you make money. To be sure, all else being equal it is easier to make money with a large market share than a small one. But you can make money without a large market share (e.g. the Apple Macintosh), and you can have a large market share without making any money (e.g. the Apache web server).

So maybe you meant to say, "There are really only two decisions that Google made that allowed them to achieve a large market share" or something like that (though even that is arguable). But "large market share" and "success" are not the same thing.

But in September of 2000 Google had neither success nor a large market share. All they had then was a kick-ass product and a really good team. Again, all else being equal, having a kick-ass product is helpful. But it is neither necessary (c.f. Microsoft) nor sufficient (c.f. Napster) for success.

Actually it is you who are in the wrong here, though the voters on this thread don't seem to realize it. The guy you're arguing with was an early Google employee. He knows what he's talking about.

Thanks for backing me up PG.

BTW, just noticed this too:

> by all words, I don't mean useless words like conjunctions

Conjunctions and other common words are far from useless. If you ignore them you will go badly wrong on queries like "To be or not to be".

That's not a particularly strong argument. It's just a call to authority argument without actually adding any real information one way or the other.

You do not understand the argument from authority. Argument from authority would be if PG had said that I'm right because, say, I had a Ph.D. But being an early Google employee when the topic under discussion is the early days of Google doesn't make on an authority, it makes one a primary source.

But you may have noticed that I did not bring this up. That's because your factual claims are easily debunked with information from the public record.

How can such a long argument go on and nobody is simply making a post with a series of numbers showing search engine marketshare from 2001?

pg, the early Google employee has not made any statements to contrary.

He has not asserted anything but the existence of unspecified inaccuracies. Paul was neither on the board of directors and was not involved with this decisions. He is not best source.

This is true. Look at Google S-1 filing. It validates everything you said.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/0001193125040...

There are many people here who want to argue back and forth about their opinions and are not concerned about having data.

I cannot believe you are being personally attacked over this when the facts of matter are so easy to research.

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