The link you've given shows Google had the majority of market share by October 2004, which is in line with what the parent comment states (at least the way I pa

The link you've given shows Google had the majority of market share by October 2004, which is in line with what the parent comment states (at least the way I parse it). What were they paying to be default on prior to October 2004? Smartphones didn't exist, Firefox didn't exist, Internet Explorer didn't have a dedicated UI element that led you to a search engine. Are we talking about software that made Google the default home page? IE Toolbars? Feature phones like the Blackberry? I was active on the Internet since the late 90s, but I only remember having to type "www.google.com" prior to 2005, but I'm certainly no means an expert.