The History Of Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a marketing strategy that analyzes what people are searching for on the Internet. The procedure involves determining what keywords or what keyword phrases people are using to enter into the search box in looking up any particular subject.

Optimizing a website might also involve editing the verbiage in the website itself to better reflect a more focused content. If people are searching for a specific keyword, then the information that appears should at least shed some light on that topic. So the editing of the actual content of the website, reworking the HTML code, and adding more backlinks to give the site more relevance on the internet can add to the credibility of the site.

All of this began to occur back when the search engines began to send a spider to new websites so they could be indexed and cataloged on the server of the search engine. Information about the page, its contents and relevancy to the subject, the number of links coming back to the site, and weighting for certain words and overall weight of the page in regard to relating information is all considered as well.

As web site developers began to catch on the workings of the search engines in indexing and classifying websites, they began to work a little harder to make their sites become more appealing to the search engines. The term ìsearch engine optimizationî came into common use around 1997.

Early optimization relied on meta tag and keyword density placement, and promised some quick success for awhile until the search engines determined that this type of manipulation was not to be allowed because it place too much control of the wrong kind in the hands of the webmasters. The objective of the search engines was to provide pertinent information in relation to the search terms imputed by the viewer, rather than to have stuffed keywords be the prime factor of search results.

The search engines came back with more complex algorithms, which made it more difficult for webmasters to be too quick to dominate a niche or a broader subject. The plan of the search engines was to make a truer representation of the search requests appear at the top.

Two Stanford students established a term called PageRank, which provided a true result of what people were searching for. They also scored the value of links from page to page as being a major determinant as to how popular a page was in relation to others.

In 1998 these two students founded Google, which began to gain a following because of its simplicity and well-designed search capabilities. The sophistication of the Google search engine began to outpace the ìgamersî, or those who would try to outsmart the Google analytics in order to rank well.

It has been a constant battle between Google and webmasters as each plays the algorithm game. It has been found, however that if a Webmaster will just give google what it wants, then the chances for ranking improves very quickly. The main ingredient that will carry the day is good content that gives a good description on the webpage of the subject that the keyword is asking for. All the scheming and plotting doesnít do all that much good. The emphasis should be the narrowing of the subject matter down to a smaller niche so the subject matter can be more focused upon what the viewer is looking for.