History and Evolution of SEO: The Definitive Guide

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It helps to promote the products of any company by using the websites in its best possible ways or by making the websites to appear top of the 'search'. We can promote our products in numerous ways like social media marketing (Facebook, Instagram), Video marketing, Content marketing or Affiliated marketing. But SEO is convertible when related to these. We get customer enquiries too.

History of SEO

Google was started as a subdomain  in 1998. But it became popular after the shocking incident that happened in USA i.e World Trade Centre attack on September 11, 2001. Many people searched about this event in Google but Google could not produce enough details. Because Google was not crawlable to some web pages. In order to make maximum web pages crawlable, SEO starter guide was published for webmasters (those who have access to websites). Initially it was not approved due to privacy issues but later it was approved. This is the beginning of SEO.

After the overuse of starter guide, search results were of less quality and Google's credibility was lost. People's trust was essential for Google. So it made certain changes to search engine algorithms. Google was early niche specific or content specific. But it was converted to link specific for high ranking. Gradually, Google's website got links from other websites. Each link is considered as a recommendation vote. But it again became low quality. Finally quality link specific websites are approved. For this purpose pagerank was introduced as a scaling factor by Google. Google awarded page ranks to highly trusted websites. 

Passing Juice in SEO

When more page ranked websites  started  selling links for profit, google received less quality items. In order to control them, Google introduced link juice (passing juice). Link juice is used in the SEO world to refer to the value or equity passed from one page to another. This value is passed through hyperlinks. If website receives more links  from other websites, equity  will be passed but the page rank may diminish. For this purpose Google introduced "rel = no follow" formula. So no equity will be passed and thereby reduces the chance of decreasing pagerank.

Upto 2008, Google tried to make several changes to their algorithms but they also feared to do so. When Google gained wide popularity, it started an advertising program called Google AdWords. 

If we want to sell an item  Google AdWords is the best option. we can create ad campaigns in it and we can customize it into many ways. Each click will get money(cost per click). But it is a pre paid ad program. So Google decided to introduce a new program which will give us income. That is Google Adsense.

 A blog will get income by using the Google adsense. But ad- sensed websites may get less visitors. So Google's revenue will get affected.

Introduction of Personalized Search Results

After 2008, Google was recognised globally. It had changed a lot. Google tried to become a personal assistant rather than a mere search engine. So it easily gained people's trust. It added many features like weather updation, calculation, mailing system etc. Google also produced personalized search results. When a user log in to the google and search about something, google stores that searched website's data separately and later whenever we re login to that website, google gave us detailed search results. In short, it gave us customized search results.

Pogo sticking feature

In 2009, Google became more interactive and updated more features. When  more user interaction comes in a website, that website has the higher chance of ranking. This feature exists till date. Pogo sticking feature is an interesting feature. Whenever we searched about something in  google and opens the first result and soon we press backspace and move on to the next result, spending  a considerable amount of time in it, Google will uplift the second site and degrade the first one( if the process is repeated for a few days intentionally).

Social media authorized score

By 2010, People actively started using social media websites like  Facebook, Orkut etc. Social media signals was included as a ranking factor in Google. Google made an algorithm change for this. Social media authorized score is an example for this. If our social media site was shared by more authorized users and became highly interacted, our social media site gets higher ranking. It was determined by social authority score or social influential score, which means the number of interactions that a website can achieve.