Like the internet in its early years, SEO was undeveloped, competitive, and… crazy. This essay will take you on a fascinating journey through the years as we explore the fascinating history of search engine optimization, from its modest origins to the complex and diverse field it is today.
THE INTRODUCTION OF SEO HISTORY PRE-1990S
Unbelievably, in July 1945, the initial concept for the internet—or at least a worldwide repository of data—was hatched. In an article for The Atlantic at the time, Dr. Vannevar Bush, the head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, proposed the concept that would eventually be known as “Google.” On September 10th, 1990, Alan Emtage, a then-student at McGill University, launched Archie, arguably the world’s first search engine (although this is still debated by SEO fanatics today).
The World Wide Web as it exists now did not exist during the early stages of the internet. Even though the technology was outdated, there was still an internet, and files were dispersed throughout the network. The main way to save and retrieve files was through File Transfer Protocol (FTP).
Archie servers, which get their name from the term “archive,” were software applications that kept databases of anonymous FTP host directors where users could connect and download files.
THE 1990S: THE WILD WEST SEARCH ENGINE
The evolution of search engines was greatly aided by the following ten years. There were several human-run directories and crawler-based listings, such as AskJeeves, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, AltaVista, and Yahoo!, in contrast to today, when Google rules the web.
The only way to optimize a website at this time was through on-site activity, thus even with the vast array of search engines available, SEO marketers had little options for raising their website ranks. Among them were:
• Verifying the quality and relevancy of the material;
• Verifying the amount of text;
• Verifying the accuracy of the HTML elements;
• Including both internal and outbound links
REMARKABLE SEO TIMES FROM THE 1990S: 1994
Jerry Wang and David Filo founded Yahoo! in 1994 while attending Stanford University. The website was once an online bookmark list but has since grown to become one of the most widely used search engines.
Other search engines including Alta Vista, Infoseek, and Lycos also emerged this year.
1996
Two years later, BackRub—a search engine that ranked websites according to popularity and inbound link relevancy—was created by two more Stanford University students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Subsequently, the website rose to prominence and gained widespread recognition. Google.
1997
The google.com domain was registered a year later. AskJeeves, which has now changed its name to Ask.com, also debuted in the same year. Additionally, this year was the first when the acronym “SEO” was utilized.
1990s NOSTALGIC WEBSITES
AUCTIONWEB (LATER CHANGED TO EBAY)
The year 1995 saw the shift to virtual acts, permanently altering the way people purchase and sell their possessions. Online auctions, led by AuctionWeb, which would eventually become eBay, had replaced car boot sales.
Not long after the website’s inception, its creator, Pierre Omidyar, made the first sale on the platform. The website facilitated transactions of $7.2 million in less than a year. eBay is important to society since it made it possible for collectors to look for things like old pottery and kid’s toys that are out of their local area.
Yahoo! Games
Launched in 1998, Yahoo! Games is a component of the Yahoo! website that offers a large selection of games in several genres, including word, card, board, sports, and more. All of the games are available as Java applets and Flash games. This website may have a simple look, but don’t let that deceive you—the games on it were incredibly influential and addictive, setting the stage for later hits like Candy Crush.
The website included a huge selection of games, all of which could be played for free except for occasional pop-up advertisements and restrictions. Games with a high level of investment could purchase “All-Star” status to get extra benefits.
HAMPSTER DANCE
An excellent illustration of early Internet culture is the Hampster Dance. One of the earliest memes on the internet, it was straightforward but very popular and featured animated GIFs of hamsters with a tune that played automatically. Although the website was first launched in 1998, it took a year for it to become well-known online in 1999.
PITCHFORK
Since its 1995 debut, Pitchfork, an online music magazine, has been a prominent source of music journalism thanks to its weekly features, regular record reviews, and carefully curated assortment of indie music news.
Similar to most websites this year, Pitchfork’s initial design had a navigation system reminiscent of a newspaper encyclopedia, with columns dividing various musical genres and a muted colour palette.
THE 2000S
At the time, Google’s site crawler and PageRank algorithm were innovative, and they have forever altered the landscape of SEO.
Before that, domain names, on-page content, site layout, and the ability of a website to be included in directories were all taken into consideration by search engines when ranking sites.
Conversely, Google’s algorithm rated websites based on both on-page and off-page elements, including the volume and—above all—the calibre of external links that go to a certain page.
These days, Google is synonymous with the internet. The corporation has even permeated common speech; in June 2006, the Oxford Dictionary included the term “Google” as a verb. But things weren’t always like this. In actuality, Google’s reputation as a search engine was not well-known in the early 2000s.
Yahoo! made a disastrous strategic error at the beginning of the new millennium when it chose to work with Google rather than Inktomi, giving the business more control over its organic results.
HOW DID GOOGLE’S ALGORITHM CHANGE IN 2003?
Another pivotal moment for Google came with the release of the “Florida” algorithm upgrade in November 2003.
With this update, Google began penalizing websites for the common practice of keyword stuffing, which is the process of conducting preliminary keyword research, selecting a suitable phrase, and then stuffing the phrase so heavily into the content that it becomes unreadable. This indicates a shift in Google’s emphasis from quantity to quality of content.
2005 was a historic year for SEO.
In terms of search engine technology, 2005 was a major year.
Google partnered with rival search engines MSN and Yahoo! in January to introduce the Nofollow Attribute, a tool that reduces spam comments and links on webpages.
Google debuted its personalized search function in June of that year, allowing search results to be customized based on a user’s past searches and browsing habits. This feature improved SEO’s relevancy and accuracy even more.
2009: THE RISK OF BING: THE “KILLER” GOOGLE?
This year witnessed the launch of Bing, a Microsoft-initiated search engine that is being actively advertised as a superior Google substitute with purportedly better search results.
Notwithstanding the assertions, Bing was not a “Google-Killer,” as the Search Engine Journal pointed out, noting that the only discernible distinction between the two engines was that Bing gave prominence to terms in URLs and preferred pages from big websites.
THE 2010S
By now, Google had established itself as the industry standard search engine, and people were beginning to realize the advantages of well-done page and intent optimization.
“Social signals,” which show written Facebook posts from your network that match your query, were added to Bing and Google in December 2010 as a result of Google’s 2010 Caffeine update.
2011–2012–2013: A PERMANENT IMPULSE ON SPAM
To combat misinformation and subsequently alter SEO, Google issued two algorithm modifications in these years: Panda in 2011 and Penguin in 2012.
To increase revenue, these content farms frequently included a high ratio of advertisements to content.
CAN YOU VISUALIZE THE FUTURE OF SEO?
Even though it’s never easy to forecast the future, particularly when it comes to technology, there are some trends that we can look forward to, and many of them will help us understand how SEO will change over time.
In the upcoming years, new technology will also fundamentally alter the SEO landscape. Over the past few years, new methods of searching—like voice search SEO—have already significantly altered SEO due to the proliferation of smart speakers and phones.