The 10-year history of search engine optimisation is closely tied to the underlying growth
of the internet and the development of its attendant search technologies. The three driving
forces have been:
1. The growth and commercial value of the internet consumer base.
2. The rising intensity of competition in online market categories.
3. The increasing sophistication of search technologies.
With the growth in value, the rewards for success in the marketing battle have risen
significantly. With an increasingly crowded internet, search has become a more important
component of commercial success. Without search, how is your site found? As a result,
attempts to both legitimately manage or illegitimately manipulate search results have
become motivated by the greater rewards on offer.
The early days of search engine optimisation go back to mid-1990s when the internet first
began to attract significant numbers of web sites and users. In those early days, emphasis
was on the submission stage – getting your site placed into as many search engines as
possible. The most important aspect of a search engine algorithm appeared to be entirely
“on-page” based and was focused almost exclusively around meta tags and their related
text.
Search algorithms could be decoded simply by analysing the results pages. During the
late 1990s, ethical SEOs and spammers alike realised that search engine results could be
manipulated by the simple process of adjusting a site’s meta tags to match the desired
keywords. During this period there were many crude attempts by spammers to stuff meta
tags with irrelevant but popular search terms. Famous spamming keyword meta tags have
included “Britney Spears” on sites with nothing to do with Britney Spears. It just
happened to be that Britney was one of the most searched for terms.
Google’s arrival in 1998 and the introduction of its “off-page”, link based, approach
signalled the beginning of the end for the exclusively meta tag driven approach. Google
was really the first engine to establish that sites carrying similar content had a propensity
to be linked. Google’s strength appeared that the relevance of its results was less
vulnerable to the orthodox spamming techniques of its day. Search users were attracted
by its relevance to their search needs. In essence the key to success under the Google
algorithm was not what your site said about itself but what the links from other sites said.
The Google spider apparently ignores keyword meta tags entirely and only the MSN
spider apparently places any emphasis on them at all. Abuse of the keyword meta tag by
spammers led to its downfall. Google’s subsequent rise to dominance eventually
transformed the SEO industry. Google’s rise in popularity forced many competitor search
engines to fall by the wayside or to be consolidated with larger parents such as Yahoo.
Due to Google’s success, both Yahoo and Microsoft, through its newly independent and
revised MSN search engine, have had to take on board many of the features of Google’s
approach. The influence of inbound links continues to increase.
of the internet and the development of its attendant search technologies. The three driving
forces have been:
1. The growth and commercial value of the internet consumer base.
2. The rising intensity of competition in online market categories.
3. The increasing sophistication of search technologies.
With the growth in value, the rewards for success in the marketing battle have risen
significantly. With an increasingly crowded internet, search has become a more important
component of commercial success. Without search, how is your site found? As a result,
attempts to both legitimately manage or illegitimately manipulate search results have
become motivated by the greater rewards on offer.
The early days of search engine optimisation go back to mid-1990s when the internet first
began to attract significant numbers of web sites and users. In those early days, emphasis
was on the submission stage – getting your site placed into as many search engines as
possible. The most important aspect of a search engine algorithm appeared to be entirely
“on-page” based and was focused almost exclusively around meta tags and their related
text.
Search algorithms could be decoded simply by analysing the results pages. During the
late 1990s, ethical SEOs and spammers alike realised that search engine results could be
manipulated by the simple process of adjusting a site’s meta tags to match the desired
keywords. During this period there were many crude attempts by spammers to stuff meta
tags with irrelevant but popular search terms. Famous spamming keyword meta tags have
included “Britney Spears” on sites with nothing to do with Britney Spears. It just
happened to be that Britney was one of the most searched for terms.
Google’s arrival in 1998 and the introduction of its “off-page”, link based, approach
signalled the beginning of the end for the exclusively meta tag driven approach. Google
was really the first engine to establish that sites carrying similar content had a propensity
to be linked. Google’s strength appeared that the relevance of its results was less
vulnerable to the orthodox spamming techniques of its day. Search users were attracted
by its relevance to their search needs. In essence the key to success under the Google
algorithm was not what your site said about itself but what the links from other sites said.
The Google spider apparently ignores keyword meta tags entirely and only the MSN
spider apparently places any emphasis on them at all. Abuse of the keyword meta tag by
spammers led to its downfall. Google’s subsequent rise to dominance eventually
transformed the SEO industry. Google’s rise in popularity forced many competitor search
engines to fall by the wayside or to be consolidated with larger parents such as Yahoo.
Due to Google’s success, both Yahoo and Microsoft, through its newly independent and
revised MSN search engine, have had to take on board many of the features of Google’s
approach. The influence of inbound links continues to increase.
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