In today’s fast-paced world, ‘evolution’ is a permanent and inevitable part of everything – humans, the world, and technology! Of all these, technology has witnessed stellar growth in the past few decades with faster internet, the foray of marketing into the digital space with the expansion of SEO, SMM, and much more.

Before delving into the timeline of SEO, it is important to understand more about SEO:

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves practices that improve web page positioning (or ranking) in organic search results.

When did SEO come into existence?

SEO witnessed emergence in the 1990s and has evolved since then. The word ‘SEO’ was first used in 1997.

Why is SEO important?

The most important aspect of SEO is increased visibility. This means that prospective customers can find your products or services easily, especially when your website has a high ranking on the search engine results page (SERP). Another aim of SEO is to increase the traffic of a website. Position zero (the snippet on a search engine results page) and the first three positions are considered to be the vital spots after a site has found itself on the first page of SERP. A page with effective SEO not just gains prospective customers, but also obtains a higher page authority. Page authority indicates the relevancy, trustworthiness, and quality a website has to offer.

Where can SEO be found or created?

There are two aspects that a business needs to focus on while working on SEO:

1. On-page SEO – It looks at the content on a website and its accompanying pages. It includes aspects like title tags, headings, URL structure, alt text for images, page content, internal linking, etc.
2. Off-page SEO – It focuses on the authority or popularity of the page. It includes components like social media marketing, inbound links, guest blogs/posts, etc.

Both on-page and off-page SEO is equally important for a business.

How does SEO work?

To make it to the search engine page, a website needs its content to be visible to the search engines.

Search engines perform three important functions:

1. Crawling – The bots (called spiders) of search engines look for content.
2. Indexing – The content found during crawling gets stored and organized. An indexed page appears as a result of a query.
3. Ranking – The results of a query are ranked in the order of relevancy, making it easy for the users to access information.

The Timeline of SEO

Understanding the origin of SEO is not something many of us care to do. We know it as a vital concept for business growth and as a constantly evolving idea, but not much is thought about its origin, as we are more concerned with its application.

• The Emergence of Search Engines

The 90’s witnessed search engines becoming a common name among many businesses and households when Tim Berners Lee published the first-ever website in 1991. Though search engines ensured connectivity, the main problem was the quality of information – the search engines were successful in catering to the users’ queries, and they also hoarded users with information (a result of keyword stuffing and spam links from one website to another).

• Google’s Appearance

Started by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google was formed to address the issue of quality and relevant information to the end-users. The idea of ‘PageRank’ came into existence during this time. PageRank or PR is believed to be the cornerstone of SEO. It is a system developed to rank web pages on Google. The higher the rank of a page, the more authoritative it is. Put simply, it is the order of importance of a page based on the quality and number of links that direct towards it. Early 2000 saw the commencement of Google’s takeover of making the search space more optimized.

• More than Words

The idea of quality content took shape in the early 2000s when many websites received penalties for keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is when companies fill (or stuff) their web pages with the same target term, to rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP). Some types of keyword stuffing are the repetition of phrases and words and the inclusion of unrelated/out-of-context words.

• The Turning Point

2005 is touted to be a crucial year in the search engine world. Many search engines came together for the ‘no-follow attribute’, a move that aimed to cut down on the number of spam links and comments on websites. With this, search engines became more personal, with each of them offering personalized search through search and browsing history.

• Reorganization of SEO

Once the search engines became more personal, they began aggressively marketing and competing among themselves to produce better search results for the users.

• Smart SEO

Search engines have evolved continuously, making SEO a part and parcel of their functionality. Today, when users type their search query, search engines offer a plethora of information, making it smooth and smart for the users.

• Social Media and SEO

Late 2009 witnessed the emergence of numerous social media platforms. The growing importance of social media in SEO gave rise to the concepts of on-page and off-page SEO. In the same year, an algorithm was rolled out to find sites that contained a lot of frequently updated, yet low-quality content, which was put out to gain a high rank on the search engine. Soon after this, Google also came up with an update to pull out sites that contained misleading/spam hyperlinks that were completely irrelevant to the heading (H1).

• Mobile-Integrated Sites for Better SEO

With smartphones slowly taking over as the search medium, Google also pulled out sites that were not mobile-friendly, thereby ranking them poorly on search engines. This emphasized that SEO was not just about content and keywords, but also about responsive design and smooth interface.

Smartphones are the go-to device in today’s world. This puts user experience, interface, design, and appearance of sites on mobile at the forefront. Features like voice search and regional languages are slowly impacting the SEO of a page. The future of SEO seems to be in sync with the latest and developing technologies that enable a better user experience.

MicroSolutions Kuwait is your destination for an enriching on-page and off-page SEO experience and a stepping stone toward gaining organic leads and business growth.