About non-algorithm competitive advantages. It's easy to switch search engines, so google invests madly: Capital - massive capital investment in data centre ar

About non-algorithm competitive advantages. It's easy to switch search engines, so google invests madly: Capital - massive capital investment in data centre around the world, for low latency, particularly for Google Suggest. Capital is an enormous barrier-to-entry for web startups. Google made search capital-intensive. PR - consumer habit, supported by those myriad projects that position google in consumer minds as "leading tech company". It matters that you are the best; it matters that decision makers know you are the best. Data - being first gives you a headstart, but competitors will catch up if you don't run at least as fast (and ways to improve that consumers care about - more running track). If you can something you have to do this that competitors lack, it's easier. So google madly collects data, and uses it to e.g. NLP of queries Backend - Sergy did a lot with little hardware in the beginning, and that has continued, I believe including their own silicon. All that gives google time to rival better search - and money buy it.