Recently - Danny Sullivan wrote this piece, on Microsoft's Search Engine. It's a lengthy write up, but definitely worth a read. I've attended a number of events at which Danny has spoken, including the Webmaster Series which he referenced in this article.
Having spent the last 4 years covering the Global Search Industry, I have a lot of respect for Danny's opinion. Much of what he's written is spot on.
I do have one slight disagreement though.
Danny "Word-of-mouth is far more powerful, in my opinion. Google was built on it. It was a great product that took off like wildfire on the web. Distribution deals certainly helped Google, but I don’t buy into them alone being what “made” Google. It was far from the only search engine to cut distribution deals. For one example, Excite gained important distribution via Netscape, but that didn’t save the company in the long-term."
Word-of-mouth was great for Google, however - by far the greatest catalyst for the companies success, was it's revolutionary monetization platform which enabled it to sign distribution deals with AOL, CNN & several of the most popular general interest portals of the day.
It's worth noting that Google "Stole" many of those distribution deals from Overture - which was the pre-eminent Search Player at the time.
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