probably. the world only needed to decide on one search engine. it happened to be google.<p>after the world set (for google, thanks more for universities putting search boxes on their sites, more than algorithms) they could do absolutely anything. launch free email with 1gb? disregard ads and only allow text ads?<p>they did everything wrong by the book and are still huge. So i doubt excite could have screwed it up. well, they could have screwed the university fan-base... but that is about it.