...and wasn't even part of a plan, she said. Instead, it was the design of co-founder Sergey Brin.
Why so minimalist, she wondered? Sergey's response: "We didn't have a Webmaster, and I don't do HTML."
Google also decided against presenting newbie and expert versions of its search page, Mayer said. People figure it out quickly, so the company aims its product at the experts.
"The learning curve on search is really fast," she said. "People go from 'Where can I get spaghetti and meatballs in Silicon Valley' to 'italian food san jose' really fast," she said.
The complexity of search
Google tries to look simple from the outside, but its search process is, as no-one will be surprised to hear, quite complicated.
A typical search will require actions from between 700 to 1,000 machines today, Mayer said.
That's grown more complicated as Google moved to what it calls universal search, in which the regular search results are mixed with results from its other search areas such as books, news, blogs, images and maps.
Read this
Q&A: Android maker talks mashups and mobiles
Google's Andy Rubin talks nuts and bolts about the Linux-based phone software, the lessons of Sidekick, and the beauty of the iPhone...
With those other, narrower search services, Google lost sight of the simplicity users need in its haste to bring the services to market, Mayer said.
"The urgent can drown out the important," she said. "It's great we did these urgent, expedient search indices, but what we really need to do is put them on the same page."
Indeed, in the longer run, she envisions universal search growing far more sophisticated, with a page filled with "images, videos and graphs — not a list of 10 URLs but as a holistic answer to your query".
Search also will become more personal, with results tailored for individuals. (Google has begun offering personal results for those who sign up.) One reason personalisation is important, she said: a very useful factor Google can weigh in its search results is what a person just tried searching for previously, she said. Knowing that, "We know what you discarded or are refining from," she said.
"We know 10 years out search will probably be a lot more personalised," she said. "And there will be a lot more content to index. When we think how to build search, it's important to think about the 10-year case."
