It is challenging to trace a history of something that started at the same time as search engines, but we know that everything has to have a beginning. Even though we are not spending too much time thinking of its origins, because we are concerned about new forms and rule that search engine, provide us.
However, unlike other things that we cannot differentiate and locate throughout history, SEO is young, and it frequently changes, which is why it is challenging to talk about it. According to most experts, the birth of search engine optimization started somewhere in 1991, which means that it appears to be a millennial.
Even though it has a short life, it evolved quickly due to billions of people that are searching for something using search engines. Today, most people tend to hire and find appropriate SEO company that will help them optimize the website so that they can reach top rankings and gains more potential visitors, and clients.
However, before we enter into the core of optimization, we want to present you the very beginning of SEO. For those reasons, we have to start by explaining the idea of search engines first, so that you can understand everything completely.
History Of Search Engines
The first idea that people should have a current archive to find relevant data that would be useful for that started back in 1945, after the end of World War II.
Dr. Vannevar Bush, who was director of Office of Scientific Research and Development, stated that collection of observations and data, as well as extraction of material from existing idea, is the thing that will be utterly alive in the future.
We have to fly several decades later when Alan Emtage created Archie, which was the first search engine that used the philosophy that Bush stated. You should click here if you want to learn more on Archie search engine.
Of course, some experts are still debating whether this was the first search engine or not, but the main idea of Archie was to help his friends to find information from other servers by using the internet. It was primitive operation when we compare it to nowadays, but still, it had to start somewhere.
The ’90s were a time when things changed rapidly, and we can state numerous pivotal developments that created a shape of today’s search engine and everything that goes with it. For instance, Six Stanford students decided to create Architext, which became a search engine called Excite.
This particular search engine revolutionized the way they cataloged information, which allowed people that used them to sort results based on specific keywords, which required some optimization.
During those times, numerous search engines entered the market and disappeared afterward, but only Google stayed as well as other engines such as Bing, MSN and many more. That is the main point when SEO entered the scene.
Since search, engines were the best way to find something you need, people that owned websites wanted to cheat it by taking actions and manipulating so that they can reach top results.
Even though these results were not quality ones when we compare with ones today, but as soon as someone decided to use some tactics and methods to improve their rankings, that was the birth of search engine optimization.
What About SEO?
The ’90s
Since search engines entered the scene, more and more people decided to connect to the internet and to use them to find relevant information that they needed in the first place. However, the main problem was to differentiate quality information from lousy ones.
Search engines used keywords as well as matched words, and it was just limited to it, which means that most website owners used a technique called keyword stuffing, which required from them to repeat keywords repeatedly, with the idea to improve rankings.
However, everything changed when two students from Stanford decided to change a game.
When Brin and Page started Google, the optimization was the primary problem that they wanted to solve. Check this link: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66358?hl=en to see what Google thinks about keyword stuffing.
They wrote in one article that the primary business model for search engines is advertising, but since advertising requires money from websites, that was not useful for visitors that wanted to learn something and find the appropriate site that will answer their criteria and query.
That is the main point when they created and mentioned PageRank, which was the technology that Google used to rank search results based on quality content that will be useful to searches, and not by keywords. That was the first thesis that created SEO that we know today.
The New Millennia
Google took over all other search engines due to their efficient business model, and the main idea is that this particular one did not care about advertisements as others, but the idea was to create usefulness to potential visitors.
That was the point when they started to provide guidelines and rules for white hat SEO. We are talking about regulations that websites should stick to if they want to reach high and top results. However, it was challenging to implement guidelines in the algorithm that Google used, so most websites did not follow them strictly.
The main reason for that is that PageRank was based on some links that one page had, and more links meant higher rankings. However, they still did not know how to measure the authenticity of links.
The algorithm entered the scene in 2003 with the Google update, which caused numerous websites to lose their rankings. It was the first time when sites got penalties due to keyword stuffing, which signaled everyone that guidelines are important and that they have to follow them completely.
The biggest year was 2005 because that was the point when Google united with MSN and Yahoo and created Nofollow Attribute, with the idea to reduce the number of spammy links. That was the moment when people and website owners understood that only by following guidelines they could reach the top rankings.
Algorithms are frequently changing, which means that search engines are still fighting with spammy websites, but today, we have entirely general ideas on what should and what shouldn’t be the part of the website. It is simple as that.
