With the increased interest in search engine optimization (SEO) methods and techniques, you might think that this process of manipulating search engine rankings is as recent as say, the rise of social media. SEO is actually a pretty old practice, arising first in the mid 1990s. Sure, that may not be old when you think about it, but when it comes to technology, anything older than a decade, is pretty old.

But before we get to the history of SEO, let’s first tackle what SEO is all about.

SEO Explained and SEO History

As mentioned above, SEO is the process of improving a website or web page’s visitor traffic through the manipulation of rankings on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. This includes improving the rank of site’s URL, landing page and other specific pages. Through keyword optimization and good content creation, the spiders or robots of search engines see which sites and pages are more relevant to Internet users who are looking for specific information about their needs, be it a product, service or news byte.

The earliest methods of search engine optimization were first used sometime around 1995 and 1996. Back then, programmers and webmasters would manipulate the keywords in their programming code to manipulate their website rankings. This eventually paved the way for programmers to decode the algorithms of search engines at will, allowing them to produce exceptional work for clients looking to increase their web exposure.

Cracking search engine algorithms soon grew out of style in the late 90s, as search engines began to use more complicated code—which also doubled as a way of killing spam and irrelevant content. The rise of Google eventually encouraged programmers and developers to use organic SEO techniques to increase their rankings.

Of course, this is just the type of the iceberg, if you’re looking to have the basics of SEO explained and SEO history discussed in closer detail, you can simply go online for more information.