| So how did Google get from a market share of less | | | | It was at this point that Sergey Brin was drawn into |
| than 1% in 1999 to almost 80% today? What is so | | | | the project. At this time. Page estimated the size of |
| special about Google and how has it come to | | | | the web to be approximately 10 million documents |
| dominate the scene? In this article, the third in my | | | | and the number of links to be perhaps 100 million. |
| search history series, I look at the role of luck, timing | | | | Altavista had impressed everyone by managing to |
| and the mistakes of competitors in the rise of | | | | index all those documents on a single large computer. |
| Google. I also evaluate the unique technology and | | | | However, indexing both the documents and the links |
| vision at the heart of the Google algorithm. | | | | was, to say the least, a big hairy problem; precisely |
| The Dot-com Shake-out | | | | the sort of challenge that appealed to Brin. |
| You might be surprised to hear me moan about the | | | | In fact, the problem was much tougher than either |
| dot-com mania of 1999-2000. After all, for many of | | | | probably realized at the time. At this point, the web |
| us it was an exciting time. However, for the early | | | | was growing at an exponential rate and the |
| search engines, it was essentially a death-knell! The | | | | computing resources required for the task were in |
| new money entering the market was huge but | | | | fact well beyond the humble resources of a student |
| investors wanted to see returns. Search Engines | | | | project. This brings me to the part played by lady |
| were clearly part of the future, but where was their | | | | luck in the formation of Google. |
| revenue stream? How could one make money from | | | | In late 1996, the BackRub crawler was consuming |
| free results - especially free results powered by very | | | | nearly half of all Stanford's network bandwidth and, |
| expensive computer infrastructures? This impatience | | | | on occasions bringing down Stanford's internet |
| grew following the dot-com crash of March 2000. | | | | connection. Page and Brin had to beg and borrow |
| Yahoo! seemed to be the only company with any | | | | storage capacity and were continually running out of |
| kind of sustainable "pure internet play" (from banner | | | | space and lines of credit. Whilst both were hardly |
| advertising which was at that time well funded by | | | | mucking about, they were not completely sure about |
| the dot-com dollar). At the same time, AOL were | | | | a career in business. As Page puts it now, he was |
| pursuing a moderately successful "walled garden" | | | | either going to be a professor or run a company that |
| approach to traffic (i.e. where 70% of searches on | | | | made a difference. Nothing in between would do. |
| the site led to content within AOL properties). The | | | | So, believe it or not, in the period from 1996-7, all |
| argument at the time was that making it easy for | | | | three of the then market leaders were approached |
| people to "exit" to other sites (the essential purpose | | | | by two students with an idea for licensing a new kind |
| of the modern search engine) meant losing the | | | | of search engine. In August 2004, at the Search |
| opportunity to sell them anything from your own site | | | | Memories session at SES San Jose, the panel included |
| and content partners. | | | | Doug Cutting (formerly Senior Architect, Excite), |
| Altavista, acquired with DEC by Compaq in 1999, was | | | | Steve Kirsch (formerly founder of Infoseek) and |
| relaunched at huge cost as a portal competitor to | | | | Louis Monier, (formerly CTO at AltaVista). Together |
| Yahoo! Similarly, Excite (now owned by broadband | | | | they reminisced about the early years of search |
| provider @home) tried to become an AOL clone. | | | | engines and all admitted, one by one, that they had |
| Lycos, already the largest "pure portal" in the Spring | | | | sent the founders of Google packing. Steve Kirsh |
| of 1999, merged with the largest Spanish language | | | | was the most colorful; "Go pound sand I told them". |
| ISP, Terra Networks (and then ran itself into the | | | | Doug Cutting said "I wasn't impressed with their |
| ground). | | | | demo at all" and Louis Mornier shrugged "I didn't have |
| Disney/ABC and NBC had already invested heavily in | | | | the authority to sign a check anyway". |
| Infoseek and Snap respectively but quickly began to | | | | What if Larry Page and Sergey Brin had been just a |
| realize that the revenue they could derive from the | | | | little bit better at PowerPoint? What if Louis had had |
| increasingly portal-like services was never going to | | | | his check book with him? This book might have been |
| deliver the short term payback which shareholders | | | | called "How to get to the top of Altavista" and Digital |
| typically seek. Steve Bornstein, chairman of Walt | | | | might still have been in business, continuing the make |
| Disney Internet Group, said in his press release "the | | | | the machines that power the internet. Lady luck |
| Internet environment has continued to shift and | | | | certainly played her part in the proceedings! |
| change, and therefore our strategies must also | | | | However, despite their efforts to dodge destiny, the |
| change". 400 employees at Go Network were layed | | | | Stanford graduates did not find a suitable established |
| off and a buyer sought for the Infoseek engine. | | | | partner. Some are born great, others achieve |
| In December of 2000 a surprising report from found | | | | greatness and some have greatness thrust upon |
| that only 6.86% of all the referring traffic to | | | | them. Perhaps Larry and Sergey fall into that rare |
| websites originated from search engines (compared | | | | latter category. By the end of 1998, the Backrub |
| to 47.01% from direct navigation or bookmarks and | | | | service (renamed Google in September 1997) was |
| 46.13% from internet links). The quality of this | | | | growing fast and serving more than 10,000 daily |
| research has since been questioned, as it was based | | | | queries. The guys were introduced through a shared |
| not on server logs but on the global Hitwise stat | | | | contact to Andy Bechtolsheim, an active early-stage |
| counter data (the code for which was only placed by | | | | investor. After a short demo, Andy literally thrust a |
| many webmasters on the homepage of their site). | | | | check for $100,000 into their hands. Google inc. was |
| However, this data came at a time when there was | | | | born and Brin and Page famously celebrated with a |
| a collective loss of confidence in search and portal | | | | trip to Burger King. |
| technologies. The dot-com crash of March 2000 had | | | | The guys literally lacked a bank account or a legal |
| left investors with a major hangover. | | | | entity called Google to deposit the check into. So, |
| Is it any surprise, then, that so many search | | | | once the burgers write digested, the two set up |
| properties disappeared altogether (or closed their | | | | Google Inc and rented a garage from a friend. Five |
| internal crawl capability down) in 2001? With the | | | | months later, the initial investment roll totaled just |
| closure of Northern Light (to the public at least) in | | | | under $1 million and, by June 1999, a further round |
| January 2002, the Dot-Com shakeout had essentially | | | | (of venture capital funding) exceeded $25 million. If it |
| closed or fatally wounded WebCrawler, Magellan, | | | | were fiction, you would say it was a fairy tale... but |
| Excite, Infoseek, Go Network, Snap and Lycos. It | | | | sometimes truth is stranger than fiction (particularly in |
| also critically wounded Altavista, who were to | | | | the strange world of technology). |
| struggle on without any real investment in their | | | | From backroom to boardroom in just 5 years |
| search capability until their acquisition by Yahoo! in | | | | So what does Google mean anyway? Brin and Page |
| 2003. | | | | close the name, from a brainstorm with fellow |
| The Emergence of Paid Search | | | | students, as a play on the word Googol, meaning the |
| If the rush to convert all search engines to portals | | | | number one followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of |
| was (at the time at least) flawed strategic thinking, | | | | the term reflects the company's mission; "to organize |
| bad timing also played a part in the demise of so | | | | the immense, seemingly infinite amount of information |
| many early contenders. | | | | available on the web". As an interesting footnote, the |
| Quietly and almost unnoticed during the mania was a | | | | word Googol itself is traceable to the work of |
| relatively minor search player called go-to.com, | | | | American mathematician Edward Kasner in the 1940s. |
| renamed Overture in 2001. Whilst paid listings had | | | | His descendants briefly considered suing Google in |
| been tried before, Overture (with a 2.76% market | | | | 2004 for using the name without royalty. Only in |
| share in January 1999) were the first company was | | | | America! |
| make a success of it, with some advertisers paying | | | | Unlike their competitors, Google had a clear vision, |
| up to a dollar a click by 1998/9. Go-to.com, in fact, | | | | perfect timing and all the luck going. Whilst the big |
| only carried paid results! Personally, I never really liked | | | | boys fiddled with their content-rich portals, Google |
| or used the site myself for that exact reason. | | | | ruthlessly focused on building the biggest index in the |
| However, they persevered with their strategy, | | | | world, ranking sites organically by their authority and |
| determined to find a sustainable revenue model and | | | | serving paid listings alongside, in emulation of |
| confident that the research-oriented search engines | | | | Overture's successful model. As the web grew into a |
| of the time had little to offer a growing army of | | | | giant haystack, Google helped you find the needle. |
| web users looking to shop 'til they dropped! | | | | These factors, above all, laid the foundation for |
| History has proved that Overture were right (to | | | | Google's later dominance. |
| persevere with paid ads) although initially there was | | | | The company was also pretty thrifty and managed |
| limited evidence of this. Perhaps if the dot-com | | | | to make it's initial venture funding go a very long way |
| investors had only waited a little longer (or started a | | | | (at a time when other dotcom millionaires were |
| little later) the value of sponsored results would have | | | | spending money like it was going out of fashion). In |
| become clear. Either way, the big boys hared off into | | | | those early days, licensing the search results to other |
| portal oblivion, whilst the Overture tortoise (and the | | | | internet sites and portals was the key source of |
| model it spawned) ultimately won the race. | | | | revenue. Key moments included the use of Google |
| All the best businesses start in Garages | | | | by Yahoo! in 2000 to power their search results and |
| It really is true. The 12x18 foot garage, in which | | | | the later decision by AOL to do the same. Suddenly, |
| David Packard and William Hewlett launched | | | | there was only one serious player in town! |
| Hewlett-Packard in 1939, is considered by many to | | | | Following the important business wins of 2000 (and |
| be the birthplace of Silicon Valley. A short drive away | | | | the launch in that same year of Google Adwords and |
| is the Los Altos garage of Steve Jobs' parents, | | | | the Google Toolbar) the search engine was handling |
| where Apple Computer Inc. was born. Google Inc, | | | | more than 100 million searches a year. By the fourth |
| similarly traced its early days to a garage - this one in | | | | quarter of 2001, the company was turning a profit - |
| Menlo Park, California - where the newly formed | | | | an incredible achievement when one considers that |
| Google Inc spent its first five months as a proper | | | | Amazon (founded five years before Google in 1994) |
| business in late 1998. | | | | only turned its first quarterly profit at the same time. |
| However, the real story of Google began more than | | | | Between July 2002 and June 2003, global referrals |
| two years earlier, as the research project (nicknamed | | | | from search engines almost doubled (from 7.18% to |
| "BackRub") of two Stanford Ph.D. students: | | | | 13.46%) and have continued to increase quickly since. |
| Michigan-born Larry Page and Russian Sergey Brin. | | | | Most small business sites now obtain more than 85% |
| The simple obsession which preoccupied both was | | | | of their new visitors from search engines, with |
| the links between sites on the exponentially growing | | | | Google typically sending about 70% of them. In the |
| web. In his original thesis research, Page hypothesised | | | | UK, search engines have overtaken adult sites (in |
| that any link from one site to another was akin to an | | | | October 2006) as the most heavily trafficked |
| academic citation and the description (or anchor text) | | | | category on the web. |
| attached to that link like an annotation. If one could | | | | It was perhaps inevitable that Google would |
| identify the sites most cited for any given annotated | | | | eventually come to market and it's initial public |
| subject, one could establish a pecking order of | | | | offering took place in August 2004, creating a |
| significance for any given subject area. | | | | company worth $23 billion. More importantly, the |
| What particularly fascinated Page was what he saw | | | | flotation raised some $1.67 billion, which Google could |
| as a fundamental weakness in Tim Berners-Lee's | | | | use to develop new products and make acquisitions. |
| original design for the web; namely that it was | | | | It also made instant paper millionaires of many of |
| possible to see easily what any site was linking to but | | | | Google's employees. |
| very hard (if not impossible) to see the sites linking | | | | Perhaps the biggest irony of search history is that |
| back. Backrub sought to catalogue all the links on the | | | | AltaVista and the rest were not necessarily wrong in |
| web and, through doing so, establish which sites had | | | | their obsession with portals. They were simply right |
| the most "authority" overall and in any given topic. | | | | at the wrong time! The preoccupation of today is |
| Page insists that it was never his intention at this | | | | not dissimilar to that of 1999, with Google and others |
| point to create a search engine. However, intellectual | | | | all seeking to built "stickability" into their proposition. |
| curiosity drove him forward into the creation of a | | | | Suffice to say for now that those IPO billions in the |
| new kind of crawler, based on a link ranking system | | | | bank were helpful in the acquisitions of YouTube and |
| (now called PageRank after it's inventor) which was | | | | DoubleClick in 2006-7. This concludes my three part |
| the first of it's kind. | | | | series. |