Google began as a search engine and became the organizing layer of the web — ads, Gmail, Maps, AndroidGoogle's open mobile operating system — the dominant platform for smartphones worldwide., ChromeGoogle's web browser — built on Chromium and the most widely used browser worldwide., and cloud infrastructure. Page and Brin's focus on ranking and scale influenced how every later internet company thought about data and algorithms.

Google defined the search-and-ads economy that funds much of the modern web.

PageRank changed information retrieval from directories to algorithmic relevance.