Before getting into the meat of the matter, we at SEOcean Company, Inc. believe that people should know a little history behind the industry of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
The concept of having information generally accessible to anyone from anywhere has existed probably since the mid 1940′s, but the world wide web (www) only came into existence in the 1980′s as a result of scientists around the world needing to solve the problem of sharing research data without having access to the same computers and other data storage systems. After preliminary servers had been set up and operational for some time, early adopters of the World Wide Web were primarily universities and research laboratories. Eventually, the value of having the ability for information to be shared “online” spurned the birth of early versions of search engines which were little more than web accessible directories and listings. You could now find a business or service without peering through pages and pages of news papers or “YellowPages” books.
Enter the Google Dragon
In keeping with the new technology of the time, Google began in March 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Ph.D. students at Stanford (see:http://www.google.com/corporate/milestones.html) working on the Stanford Digital Library Project (SDLP). The SDLP’s goal was “to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library.” Larry Page began exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web and understanding it’s link structure just before being joined by Sergey Brin. From there the rest is history as the two partners when on to develop an indexing system that “browses” the web based on these studies, storing all data in a readily accessible manner.
The work at Google decreased the document retrieval time from some 15+ seconds to just about 1 second or less. Their achievements were phenomenal as they not only solidified the viability of the “Search Engine” concept, but also proved that it could be scalable as the amount of retrievable data increased.
As access to the web became more common place, businesses began to realize that they could have reach potential customers from anywhere via this new medium and so the demand for the services of those who understood this medium increased along with it’s use.
Enter the realm of Search Engine Optimization
No longer would businesses be limited to presenting themselves through the use of pricey advertising channels like periodicals, newspapers and television. It is still debated who coined the term SEO, but we know for certain that the industry was born in the mid 2000′s as businesses began to realize what they stood to gain by being found for related search terms.
It was easier for a web site to rank highly (if you knew what you were doing) back then. It’s not impossible to do well now, but since those good old days, search engines have developed far more complex algorithms (programs used to calculate the relative position of a page with respect to others based on certain factors) that are constantly being updated in the hopes of finding that which produces the most “natural” ranking system.
SEO in a Nutshell
In Summary, Search Engine Optimization or SEO, is the process of improving ranking (the visibility of a website) in search engine results via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) methods.
SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.
SEO can be broken down into two basic classes, white hat and black hat. White hat techniques are those that aim to achieve results ethically and in conjunction with the rules of Search Engine etiquette (NO SPAM POLICY). Black hat SEO however, otherwise known as spamdexing, incorporates the use of link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines frown upon the use of such techniques and seek out sites that employ them, promptly removing them from their indices in an effort to provide the best content possible.
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