Evolution and History of Search Engine Optimization

Evolution and History of SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a webpage or a website , In other words it is the process of increasing the number of visitors to the website to achieve high position in search results.

Search engine optimization can be done in 2 types;

On-page optimization

On-page optimization includes changes in the activities of website,  all measures that can be taken within the website in order to improve the rank on the search engine. There are several on page factors that affects search ranking they are,  actual HTML code, meta tags, keyword placement and keyword density.

Content of the page

Title Tags

URL

The content of the page is more important in search ranking . After content, title tags are the second most important on page factor. URL clearly shows the hierarchy of the information and this information gives a clear view about the website in the search engine.

Off-page Optimization

Off  Page Optimization refers to all measures that can be taken outside the website inorder to raise the ranking.
It means working outside the website by sharing webpages in the social media.

Search engine works based on the following steps:

• Crawling
• Catching
• Indexing

Crawling is the process of scanning the website to get the information. In Catching process, the snapshot of the page is taken and save it to the database. Indexing is the process of listing the webpages. This is done by the webmasters, who control the website.

Mainly 2 types of  SEO practices are there;

• White hat SEO

• Black hat SEO

Types of SEO

White Hat SEO is the ethical practice of optimizing web pages while Black Hat SEO is the non-ethical practice of optimizing web pages. Black hat SEO includes over optimization, duplicate content etc.

Evolution of SEO

Early 2000 google has issues with searching and scanning. The problem recognized is the lack of optimization. In older days, the search engines are content specific or niche specific. The optimization is done based on the number of keywords. The website will be on higher position, when it has more number of keywords. Thus users started to do keyword stuffing by adding too many keywords in webpage in order to obtain high rank. The keywords can be added in the blank spaces and making their font color as background color, so that it will not be visible to the users. Also keywords can be added in meta tags which gives a brief description of web pages. This is a black hat SEO practice.

Thus later google replaced content specific from link specific. Link specific indicates more links on website, then site will be on top rank. Thus webmasters try to add more links and it ultimately leads to link selling. But they didn't focus on the quality of websites. So google changes link specific to quality link specific. Which leads to the concept of google page rank with range of 10. Page rank is based on the number of quality links and subscriptions. There are only few number of websites having page rank of 10 like twitter, US gov site etc. Last update of page rank was on 2013. Page rank concept was also become a problem for google because of high page rank link selling. So google introduces passing the juice which means website with higher page rank trying to sell the links to another site, the page rank of the seller site is automatically reduced. After that google came with the concept nofollow links. Which means the equity of the site will not be reduced while passing the links.

When search engine become hit, google introduces google adwords which is a pre-paid advertisement mechanism on google. Cost-per-click is the method of paying website on each click on that ad. The cost will be reduced on each click. Later google introduces google adsense. Which is a method of earn money or commission from google.

After 2008, google introduces new updates based on quality. Thus they make a team called webspam team for updating new mechanisms. Matt Cutts was the head of the team. Google become personal assistant due to this team.

By 2009, google came with the concept, google suggest. Which means page rank will automatically increases when user responses. If user opens a website and closes or suddenly click backspace within seconds without any interactions then page ranking is decreases. This concept is called pogo sticking. 80% of people are spending time on social media. Thus at 2010, google update was based on social media signals. Google introduces social media authority to improve ranking by examine the interaction or authority value of people.

GOOGLE UPDATES 

• Panda updation

panda  updated was done by google  in 2011 to remove content spamming. It is also known as farmer updation. The main types of content spamming are content duplication or content plagiarism, using low quality contents with grammatical errors, publishing thinny pages with less content, keyword stuffing, content spinning where paragraphs are spinned. Later 2014 the new versions of Panda was launched to remove the content duplicated websites. And  it became permanent filter in algorithm. Web pages or sites which are on threat are saved into sandbox where their ranking is at lower position.

•  Penguin updation

Penguin updation  was done by google  in 2012  is related to removal of link spamming. The various types of link spamming are link exchange, link selling, link farming, wiki spamming that is obtaining links from Wikipedia after editing that content, low quality directories, comment spamming. Guest blogging, adding links in an owners blog by a guest user is also considered as spamming.

• Hummingbird Updation

By 2013, google introduces hummingbird update to add semantic search results. Google give the best results based on artificial intelligence. But the drawback is that google will be misunderstanding in some situations. Rankbrain is the next version of update of hummingbird at 2015. Here search engine automatically upgraded depends upon the search methods.

• Pigeon Updation

It is based on local SEO where location based search results are given. Five processes of local SEO are place mark, valid address, local directory, geotagging and local interactions.

• pirate updation

Pirate Updation is a filter introduced in August 2012 and it is designed to prevent the sites with many copyright.  According to Digital Millenium Copyright Act, we can register complaints to the google if our website get copyied and the google take neccessary action.

• EMD Updation

Its a 2012 update called Exact Match Domain update.  It is against the websites that use an exact match domain to rank for keywords in Google.

• Parked Domain Bug

It is 2012 update used to avoid blocking of sites.

• Mobilegeddon Update

Google introduces mobile friendly update at 2015 in order to remove non-responsive sites from search engine. Update focuses on the fact that responsive sites on mobile phones will be user-friendly. Mobile Friendly pages means it should be readable without zooming and should avoid horizontal scrolling.

Johnson Francis