No according to this dataset [1] about US search engine marketshare [1] https://...

notatallshaw · on Sept 14, 2023

The link you've given shows Google had the majority of market share by October 2004, which is in line with what the parent comment states (at least the way I parse it).

What were they paying to be default on prior to October 2004? Smartphones didn't exist, Firefox didn't exist, Internet Explorer didn't have a dedicated UI element that led you to a search engine.

Are we talking about software that made Google the default home page? IE Toolbars? Feature phones like the Blackberry?

I was active on the Internet since the late 90s, but I only remember having to type "www.google.com" prior to 2005, but I'm certainly no means an expert.

qbrass · on Sept 14, 2023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Desktop

To be fair, I don't know if they actually had to pay anyone.

notatallshaw · on Sept 15, 2023

Google Desktop was not released before October 2004 though.

And even then, what was its significance on the general desktop space? I used it heavily, but I didn't know anyone else who had it installed.