Not that I'm gung ho on Google, but...
The service they provide is advertising. And, they do charge for it. The advertising is appealing due to the fact that they provide something else (web searches) for free to large numbers of people.
Another industry in which businesses succeed on this type of model: television (you might have heard of this).
P.S. Again, though, I do think Google is overrated and mostly living on a bubble.
I love how google acts like they did this dutch auction for the average investor...I wouldn't know the first thing about doing it.(Thursday was the last to to be able to register)..IF they had done it like a regular stock, I could have bought a chuck of stock today...but they were afraid people like me would make a buck selling it later for a profit! I hope this stupid auction fails big time....