Google is popular because of its great services, simplicity and long term hard work by its engineers and software developers.
In my experience Google's results tend to be more relevent to what I'm looking for,and it's text-heavy no intrusive ads and images, just the info you want to see. Integration of their other services (youtube, gmail, google voice, google docs, etc .............................................................................................
They've been around for a long time and after acquiring lots of data from it's users, they improvise their algorithm over the years to suite it's users needs which causes people to become accustomed to them and if you talk about Search Engine, Google would be the first thing that come across the mind of many.
Google is more popular because this is one of the trusted search engine and it give us relevant result.
1) First thing is it is secure. 2) Powerful 3) EASY 4) Good 5) User Friendly 6) Every week Google found 2 new thing on Google search 7) Google Search engine (SEO) fast than other 8) Google online Adverstisments 9) Google webpage for user free web site 10) Google has so many facility like blogspot,orkut,language translation,Google labs,Google tools,image search 11) Google making mobile phone like iPhone
May be hues database, update frequently edge technologies user friendly with well marketing strategy.
Because now it is the King of Search Engines. And also give me the millions of results on every keyword.
I love all these generic answers : ) However this is the real answer to your question. Before Google there were other search engines that were dominant, such as: AltaVista and Yahoo, these search engines would give back different pages of the websites they found most fit, but they would show many results for each website, in some cases the entire first page would be one site. If your site was number one for a keyword, you would cover the rest of the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). What google did is limit the searches so that a user would have more variety, they limited each site to one result, two max. Once Google established a real good Search Engine, they started Gmail, at the time no one offered the amount of free mail space for an email account as Google did, in fact they use to show you your mail space growing in real time. This is the real reason for Google's success, the rest of the answers above are just great opinions
The simple fact that it provides the best search service on the internet. That's why it is so popular!
Google had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. They could be much better than they are but, unfortunately, they have turned into a money-making machine. Anybody who believes that Google is good for the little guy has got rocks in their head. Think about it......they don't own any of the content on the internet but are controlling what we see and who will be seen. They are too powerful and we need a good competitor for them. Bing is trying, but they are losing too much money at search. Hopefully Gates' money will carry him to success against Google. I do not like Google for what they have become, but I have no other good choice.....I have to use them.