"Try www.google.com. I've been most impressed with its ability to return good, relevant hits. Another big bonus with Google is that the site is almost completely clear of bandwidth-hogging graphics and advertising. The web site has to be the fastest I've ever seen," said a Google user in January 2000.
At first, Google's homepage was simple because its founders wanted a basic front-end to test their technology. Marissa Mayer, who is in charge of Google's homepage, mentioned some interesting tidbits:
"The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact, it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked 'What's up?' to which they replied "We are waiting for the rest of it". To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker."
While other search engines turned into portals, Google's homepage didn't change that much over time. In 2004, Google filed a patent for google.com's design and 5 years later the patent has been granted.
{ via Search Engine Land }