The SEO Revolution: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimisation

The SEO Revolution: A Brief History

Traffic is the key to any successful online business. A site without traffic is like a shop on a quiet backstreet. It will make little, if any profit. A site with lots of traffic however, has the potential to make a lot of money. If a site makes it onto the first page of a search term then, like a shop on a busy high street, it is almost guaranteed traffic. 

There are two main types of search listings: paid search and organic search. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is all about the optimisation of a website in order to rank as high in the organic listings as possible. Generally, the higher a site ranks, the more traffic it receives.

From Small Beginnings

The process of optimising a web page for search engine results has been around for almost as long as the internet itself. Long before the phrase 'search engine optimisation' came into common usage, web editors were experimenting with strategically placed keywords. 

To begin with, the internet was so small that you could read its whole contents in a single sitting. In the last 20 years however, the internet has grown at an immense rate. Now, the inconceivable size of it means that keeping any order is a complicated and demanding task.

Bringing Order to the Chaos

Search engines are the tools which make the internet useful. Without them, finding the information we need would be nearly impossible. Since the World Wide Web was rolled out in 1989 the boom in popularity, proliferation of content and competition between internet businesses has meant that the way that search engines work has had to evolve very quickly.

In April of 1994, The Yahoo directory became the first mainstream search engine. It was an online directory to which companies and web editors needed to submit their URL in order to appear in a search. In September 1995, Yahoo also began sending out 'spiders' in order to correctly index a site. As soon as these 'spiders' became involved in the ranking of a page, SEO became a very important factor. At this critical stage Yahoo was still the most important search engine, though there were many others. In January 1996, however, Yahoo became powered by a more powerful engine called Alta Vista.

Slowly, the placement and analysis of keywords became a very important part of building and optimising a website. Clearly, this system had many flaws which many were quick to exploit for their own ends. A ranking system that relied wholly on 'on-page' factors such as meta tags and keyword density was easily manipulated. This resulted in any search producing a list of unsuitable matches and spam. Things had to change.

Enter Google....

In September of 1998 Google was launched. It was a search engine company begun by two recent Stanford University Graduates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. When Google launched, search engines simply weren't working. They weren't producing accurate or helpful results. Google revolutionised the search market by relying on a whole new set of criteria. It took into consideration both the quantity and authority of any incoming links to a site, as well as its age. Google produced far more accurate results and, as a result, blew the competition out of the water.     

Google rely on many factors to decide how to rank a page. They take into account the age of the domain, how many back-links there are to a page, how many indexed pages there are on the site, whether the site is part of a directory and whether the URL contains the search terms. Though these are all contributing factors the most important factor is a value they call 'Pagerank^TM'. This value is between 0 and 10 and is calculated based mostly on the authority of the links you receive from other sites. Using all of this information, Google are able to produce accurate and useful results for any search.  

This development and evolution of search engines has precipitated a steep learning curve for those engaged in SEO. Suddenly what others thought of your content was as, if not more important than on site factors. In order to get the high authority back-links required to achieve Pagerank^TM, you needed people to like what you were putting on your site.

Where are we now?

The importance of Pagerank^TM brought about a surge in social book-marking. Sites like digg.com and reddit.com quickly became arenas where consumers were able to judge how useful content was. Offsite article directories were also suddenly found to have great value for producing highly targeted, authority links. Never had providing value to the customer been more important.

After the millennium the most important development in the internet was the boom in social media sites. Sites like Facebook and Twitter became the most popular way for web users to interact with each other. This provided internet businesses with huge potential for reaching customers. In 2010 they will remain to be the most important and valuable market place for internet marketing and SEO. Google have recently announced that they are going to be integrating twitter posts into their SERP's (Search Engine Results Page's). This integration of real time updates is undoubtedly going to become a big factor in reaching consumers in the future.

Due to its effectiveness, Google has become synonymous with searching the internet. In 2010 Google is expected to command an 80% share in all search traffic. The systems used by both Google and Bing, their next largest competitor, mean that SEO will become more and more important for internet companies.

Google takes into account so many factors, both onsite and offsite, that the process of SEO is a complicated and demanding task. For those trying to achieve the best results and marketing opportunities for their company this presents a difficult challenge. The algorithms that Google use mean that the most important sites in each niche receive the best rank. This importance is almost impossible to fake. For the consumer however, the evolution in search engine criteria has not only given more accurate results, but also prompted healthy competition in every market.