An evening with Googles Marissa Mayer (alan.blog-city.com): "# The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Infact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
# Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked 'Whats up?' to which they replied 'We are waiting for the rest of it'. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker."