I would say that when Google came out the results were about "twice as good" as AltaVista or Yahoo. Which is a lot but there were plenty of mainstream users by

I would say that when Google came out the results were about "twice as good" as AltaVista or Yahoo. Which is a lot but there were plenty of mainstream users by then who would not be able to perceive that full amount of difference, if at all, a lot of times. The main things that set Google apart in everybody's mind was that there were no ads and the pledge to not be evil was interpereted to mean they never would have ads. There was plenty of that already and people were tired of it. That's the only promise they needed to break before they would be able to become the company they are today. Their original reason for existing.