| As long as the Internet has been around, it has | | | | was then the notion of Spam came into existence. |
| remained a mystery to the mainstream public how | | | | The 2000s |
| Web sites are listed at the top of search engine | | | | SEO professionals have been seen in a negative light |
| results. There are many theories of how search | | | | over the last five years, due in part because in early |
| engines and search engine optimization (SEO) initially | | | | 2001, enthusiastic webmasters quickly realized they |
| began. | | | | could overwhelm search engine result pages by over |
| The 1990s | | | | submitting Web sites. Unfortunately, as the Internet |
| Alan Emtage, a student at the University of McGill, | | | | industry developed, search engines quickly became |
| created the first "search" program in 1990 called | | | | cautious of new SEO companies attempting to |
| Archie (still in use today), to archive Web documents. | | | | generate visitors for their clients at any cost, however |
| The following year, Gopher started at the University of | | | | unfair or unethical. Tactics such as keyword spamming, |
| Minnesota, and this is when the concept of search | | | | doorway pages, cloaking, and hidden white text placed |
| engines began. In 1993, Matthew Gray created the | | | | on white backgrounds proved too much for the |
| World Wide Web Wanderer, the earliest known | | | | search engines to tolerate. As a result, the search |
| search engine robot that assists with ranking Web | | | | engines replied with numerous countermeasures, |
| sites. But search engines as we use them today were | | | | created to filter out any techniques considered spam. |
| born in 1994. In that same year, Galaxy, Lycos and | | | | That is good news, although it forced ethical SEO |
| Yahoo! were all started, two of which are still widely | | | | companies to start using more subtle techniques to |
| popular search engines today. | | | | assist their clients Web sites with obtaining rankings in |
| Yahoo! was among the first to implement SEO | | | | the engines. |
| techniques, even though at the time they were | | | | The "big 3" search engines, Google, MSN and Yahoo!, |
| unaware of the potential growth the industry would | | | | have recently come to the realization that SEO as an |
| soon have at the turn of the century. Yahoo! Founders | | | | industry is here to stay, and to maintain effective |
| David Filo and Jerry Yang were trying to get their site | | | | results, they needed to accept the industry, even |
| seen by others on the Internet by giving it more | | | | embrace it, and engines eventually partnered with |
| exposure. Some excellent structure and tricky | | | | successful, ethical SEO companies to establish typical |
| hand-coding, their site became more available for new | | | | standards for fair and ethical optimization. This is |
| visitors. They were not questioned about ethical | | | | important to help keep information relevant and |
| business practices because nobody was sure what | | | | beneficial to visitors while still being unbiased to people |
| was considered ethical or unethical - there were simply | | | | who create the content on their Web sites. |
| no standards in place yet. | | | | The Current State of SEO |
| As the initial search engines were cataloging the early | | | | Today, there are major differences in how search |
| Internet, many business owners soon learned to | | | | engines work and how to get ranked in them. With the |
| appreciate the value of their Web site being listed in | | | | assistance of proper search engine optimization, Web |
| the search engines, as they first saw increases in | | | | sites can now have a equal fighting chance of |
| visitors to their Web sites. They began submitting their | | | | obtaining high rankings. Because SEO is a highly |
| URLs on a continuous basis, and changed their sites to | | | | specialized trade that requires both technical skills and |
| support the needs of search engine robots. SEO | | | | business marketing knowledge, it is only through the |
| companies started showing up, when they began | | | | combination of these two skills that one can properly |
| experimenting with the concept of search engine | | | | implement SEO techniques to obtain high search |
| optimization, with the emphasis initially on the | | | | engine rankings. Many SEO specialists have since now |
| submission process alone. Soon afterwards, the first | | | | realized it is "search engines or bust. |
| automatic submission software was released, and it | | | | |