Page 6 - index
P. 6
RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS
A look back at SEO's short but eventful history
Do you understand all the hype about “digital natives” already in 1997 around 60 million documents in its in-
and their allegedly superior handling of technology? dex and Microsoft tried to gain ground in search en-
Well, I don’t, as it kind of implies that the older genera- gines market in 1998 with MSN (BING today).
tion can’t keep up or just raises the question, if the Gen-
eration X, Y, and Z still know how it all started? Nobody In 1999, Altavista made inroads and relaunched its new
dares to call famous IT business wizards, like Steve search algorithm. At this time, Altavista was what
Jobs or Bill Gates (both born in 1955), “digital immi- Google is today, meaning the predominant search en-
grants”, would you? Didn’t the so-called “baby boomer’ gine. As you probably remember, Altabista’s action
generation make it all happen in the first place? went down in SEO history as Black Monday, when
many sites disappeared from the index due to Altavis-
Do you remember the birth of the search engine? ta’s failed relaunch. For the already active SEO scene
at that time, it was a kind of stock market crash. Never-
It was in 1990, when the first crawlers started to search theless, SEO could gain momentum. In fact, the first
networks and FTP directories – still offline only – and SEO conference "Search Engine Strategies" kick-
the very first of its kind was named “Archie”, coming started in San Francisco the same year.
from the McGill University in Montreal.
Google grabs for power
Only with the opening of the Internet in 1993, the first
crawlers were going online. At that time, they were al- Altavista eventually was bought by Yahoo and slowly
ready dealing with the big question that still keeps SEOs disappeared from the scene, till it was ultimately turned
busy today, namely how to manage that content can be off in summer 2013 and Google could gain further mar-
correctly crawled and indexed. ket share.
In 1994, Yahoo and Lycos got into the search engine At the turn of the millennium, Google introduced its Ad-
business and a year later the legendary search engine words and the number of indexed pages was rising for
Altavista introduced the commercialization of search the first time to more than one billion. The ability to dis-
engines. Only two years later, Larry Page and Sergey play ads in a search engine revolutionized the market
Brin launched the search engine Backrub that became and had an immense impact on the SEO industry.
Google in 1998. Many SEOs became SEAs or took from then on care
for both search engine fields. However, Google didn’t
Simultaneously Google published Pageranks (named like that. The SEOs in the world are actually a thorn in
after company founder Larry Page), which assesses the the search giants side, as they want to unhinge more
value of a web based inbound link, and search engines and more often the search algorithm.
slowly gained in importance. Actually, Lycos could show
6 Asian eMarketing - September 2016 - Search Analytics & Search Engine Optimization
A look back at SEO's short but eventful history
Do you understand all the hype about “digital natives” already in 1997 around 60 million documents in its in-
and their allegedly superior handling of technology? dex and Microsoft tried to gain ground in search en-
Well, I don’t, as it kind of implies that the older genera- gines market in 1998 with MSN (BING today).
tion can’t keep up or just raises the question, if the Gen-
eration X, Y, and Z still know how it all started? Nobody In 1999, Altavista made inroads and relaunched its new
dares to call famous IT business wizards, like Steve search algorithm. At this time, Altavista was what
Jobs or Bill Gates (both born in 1955), “digital immi- Google is today, meaning the predominant search en-
grants”, would you? Didn’t the so-called “baby boomer’ gine. As you probably remember, Altabista’s action
generation make it all happen in the first place? went down in SEO history as Black Monday, when
many sites disappeared from the index due to Altavis-
Do you remember the birth of the search engine? ta’s failed relaunch. For the already active SEO scene
at that time, it was a kind of stock market crash. Never-
It was in 1990, when the first crawlers started to search theless, SEO could gain momentum. In fact, the first
networks and FTP directories – still offline only – and SEO conference "Search Engine Strategies" kick-
the very first of its kind was named “Archie”, coming started in San Francisco the same year.
from the McGill University in Montreal.
Google grabs for power
Only with the opening of the Internet in 1993, the first
crawlers were going online. At that time, they were al- Altavista eventually was bought by Yahoo and slowly
ready dealing with the big question that still keeps SEOs disappeared from the scene, till it was ultimately turned
busy today, namely how to manage that content can be off in summer 2013 and Google could gain further mar-
correctly crawled and indexed. ket share.
In 1994, Yahoo and Lycos got into the search engine At the turn of the millennium, Google introduced its Ad-
business and a year later the legendary search engine words and the number of indexed pages was rising for
Altavista introduced the commercialization of search the first time to more than one billion. The ability to dis-
engines. Only two years later, Larry Page and Sergey play ads in a search engine revolutionized the market
Brin launched the search engine Backrub that became and had an immense impact on the SEO industry.
Google in 1998. Many SEOs became SEAs or took from then on care
for both search engine fields. However, Google didn’t
Simultaneously Google published Pageranks (named like that. The SEOs in the world are actually a thorn in
after company founder Larry Page), which assesses the the search giants side, as they want to unhinge more
value of a web based inbound link, and search engines and more often the search algorithm.
slowly gained in importance. Actually, Lycos could show
6 Asian eMarketing - September 2016 - Search Analytics & Search Engine Optimization
