History and Evaluation of Search Engine Optimization

 History and Evolution of Search Engine Optimization

History of SEO

A search engine is software used to search for information on the Internet. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving search results in a search engine. One of the most popular search engines is Google.

The Google was invented in 1998 by two students as part of their college project. Initially, it was used as a subdomain under their college website to send search results to the email address provided. This process took more than 24 hours. By 2000, the Internet was widely used around the world. On September 11, 2001, after the Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center in America, people searched Google for the relevant news, but the results were disappointing. This made Google uneasy, as it couldn't provide details about the largest building in the world at the time. Google engineers pointed out that the problem was that not all available web pages were crawlable by Google.

 So what is crawling? The search engine works in 3 steps. Crawling is the process where a program called a bot (also called a robot or spider) scans a new or updated page. The snapshot of this page is stored in the database according to its categories. This storage process is called caching. The search results are retrieved through the process of indexing.

In order for every web page on the Internet to be crawled, the webmasters who control the web pages must be given guidelines for optimization. This worries Google engineers because it's part of their secret files. When they ran out of other solutions, they published a 32-page document called the “SEO Starter Guide”." This is how search engine optimization began.

EVOLUTION OF SEO

In the beginning, Google used niche-specific or content-specific keywords. The keyword meta tag concept was used to rank web pages, with the ranking increasing with the occurrence of keywords. This tempted webmasters to Keyword stuffing, a black-hat SEO technique (an unethical practice) where keywords are overused on a web page. When Google realized this, it changed its algorithm to link-specific. This ranks the website that receives more links from other websites accordingly. Each hyperlink will be considered as recommendation vote. 

The loophole in this case was that the website owners started selling the links to the webmasters who were looking for the same. Then Google introduced the quality-specific link approach, where sites were ranked on a scale of 10. The ranking was related to the trust value of the particular website. In addition to links, 200 other factors were also taken into account. Then, website owners with high ranks started selling the links to the webmasters.

As a result, Google introduced a new tactic: "Passing the Juice". When webmasters with good page rankings put links on other websites, their ranking is lowered. Link value is the value passed from one page to another. Google has also introduced a "no follow" mechanism where the passing of the value is stopped.

For example, a link to Google could be implemented with the 'no follow' attribute like this:

<a href="http://link-path.com" rel="nofollow">anchored text</a>

Why did Google hesitate to change its algorithms? From 2003 to 2008, Google had gained popularity and growth, and had entered the field of advertising. Google AdWords, later renamed Google Ads or Pay Per Click (PPC), is a Google advertising service for businesses where ads are placed in Google. AdSense is a program operated by Google that allows website owners to place advertisements for their business on their websites. The change in the algorithm causes the keywords to change, which affects the visibility of the website and leads to a decrease in Google’s revenue.

In 2008, Google introduced Personalised search results and auto suggestions. Google began  upgrading its functionality, transforming from being just a search engine to work as a personal assistant. Web page ranking started to be influenced by the user interaction. When a user visits a page or site but doesn't engaged further, it is referred to as the Bounce rate. A higher bounce rate can create a negative  impression for that page or site. If a user visits a web page, spends less time on it and then visits next page with higher interaction, Google gives a higher rank to the second page. By 2010, social media platforms gained more attention and the ranking on social media were based on  influential power.