Google is the internet’s default starting point. Every search, YouTube view, and Maps query is a signal of what billions of people want in the moment. Those signals flow into one of the most powerful attention marketplaces ever built, a system that connects advertisers to intent at an unmatched global scale.
That marketplace brings in hundreds of billions in revenue for Alphabet every year. Search ads remain the foundation, generating around $200 billion, while YouTube, cloud services, and other business lines add billions more. By combining global reach, unmatched data, and AI-driven targeting, Google has built a system that shapes what people see, click, and buy across the modern internet.
In this breakdown, we’ll unpack how that system works, where Google’s money comes from, and the forces that could challenge its dominance.