On Monday, 24 October 2016 22:16:35 UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:

What could you see in Google back then that told you it would beat
Alta Vista?

Did a much better job of ending up with the most
useful hits on the first page with most searches.

Yes - it seemed to "know" what you were searching for and came up with far more useful hits than anything else at the time.

I told my workmates who had never heard of it as they used Ask Jeeves etc.