4 ms·

"It was the first one that didn't suck" That's also untrue. I remember being viscerally mad at Yahoo for moving away from Inktomi because Inktomi results were

"It was the first one that didn't suck" That's also untrue. I remember being viscerally mad at Yahoo for moving away from Inktomi because Inktomi results were much better for what I searched for...or I had gotten my searches to work for Inktomi. Who cares? Eventually, Google got better, and I started using them. I use a lot of Google services, but when I search the web I use Google because it works. Searches have very little traction. The only thing it takes to move my searches elsewhere is consistently better results. All it takes for me to try a new search engine is Google not working well a few more times a month.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
Lycos was ok in the super early days but as the amount of content increased a simple search engine was no longer effective. Inktomi was great because it didn't have portal-bloat and it had pretty high quality results. But when google came around it blew everyone out of the water because not only were the results generally of higher quality but it was enormously faster. Combined with a smart datacenter strategy and a smart advertising strategy they dominated the market with ease. Edit: To follow up, google was able to deliver better results (due to pagerank) faster (due to map/reduce and sharding) cheaper (due to highly automated data centers filled with commodity hardware). This combination set them up for dominance, the ability to generate better, more context appropriate ads (due to pagerank, map/reduce, etc, etc. and an effectively massive excess of processing power per search) and the ability to be profitable at a much lower CPM for ads (due to cheaper operations) was what allowed them to become a multi-billion dollar company and leave all other search companies in the dust.
bad_user 15y ago
Before using Google, I have been using both Altavista and Yahoo for searches. The results from those older search engines really sucked for me. I remember sitting at a local Internet Cafe, frustrated that I wasn't finding what I searched for. The I saw somebody using Google and thought I should give it a try. The difference that I experienced with Google was humongous, and it made an instant convert out of me, even though in general I'm pretty conservative about throwing away tools that work. Really, it wasn't even funny how better Google was. This was happening in 2001.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

Lycos was ok in the super early days but as the amount of content increased a simple search engine was no longer effective. Inktomi was great because it didn't have portal-bloat and it had pretty high quality results. But when google came around it blew everyone out of the water because not only were the results generally of higher quality but it was enormously faster. Combined with a smart datacenter strategy and a smart advertising strategy they dominated the market with ease. Edit: To follow up, google was able to deliver better results (due to pagerank) faster (due to map/reduce and sharding) cheaper (due to highly automated data centers filled with commodity hardware). This combination set them up for dominance, the ability to generate better, more context appropriate ads (due to pagerank, map/reduce, etc, etc. and an effectively massive excess of processing power per search) and the ability to be profitable at a much lower CPM for ads (due to cheaper operations) was what allowed them to become a multi-billion dollar company and leave all other search companies in the dust.

bad_user 15y ago

Before using Google, I have been using both Altavista and Yahoo for searches. The results from those older search engines really sucked for me. I remember sitting at a local Internet Cafe, frustrated that I wasn't finding what I searched for. The I saw somebody using Google and thought I should give it a try. The difference that I experienced with Google was humongous, and it made an instant convert out of me, even though in general I'm pretty conservative about throwing away tools that work. Really, it wasn't even funny how better Google was. This was happening in 2001.