I think it was due to having a sales model that worked, and a decent design. In ye olden days, Altavista and Yahoo were alternatives. Yahoo faded fast, as it wa

I think it was due to having a sales model that worked, and a decent design. In ye olden days, Altavista and Yahoo were alternatives. Yahoo faded fast, as it was more of an aol type portal, and the business model (which required a large sales team and heavy analytics to price the ads) wasn't as friendly as Google. Altavista died with DEC. Google continued to print money without hiring a huge sales team.