So much this. I remember the time. Most search engines were self-declared "portals" cluttered with all kinds of stuff and search was just one feature among many. Most of this other stuff no one wanted or needed, but the search engines insisted on it, whether because it was making them money or they saw it as added value or the designer though a mostly empty page looked dumb or the managers were bored by their own core functionality...

Whereas google did just search, did it well, and did it fast.