The evolution of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
We have witnessed it all, from the overuse of keywords in content to the overuse of AI content to rank on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Today, SEO is not as simple as it was before, and the way to do SEO has shifted, especially for businesses.
In this blog post, we would like to share the most significant changes in SEO from the very beginning of Google’s algorithms to the present day multifaceted ranking factors.
What is SEO and how does it work?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website to appear on search results for specific keywords.
When you type something in Google’s search bar, the information is fetched from its database and arranged in a specific order (ranking), which is displayed as SERPs.
This is possible due to well developed bots and algorithms.
The kind of SERPs that you see today was not the same 20-25 years ago.
At the time, the internet was full of directories and single-page websites, so there was little for users to consume.
SEO was relatively simple in those days, but nobody really knew what they were doing, and in the early 1990s when the internet wasn’t even a real thing, SEO was still in its infancy.
Moving to the present, SEO has evolved and developed with the help of algorithms.
But to date, SEO majorly relies on three things, or factors.
1) On-page SEO
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your website in a way that the search engines can easily crawl and index your content. It mainly comprises of
- Keywords: Using words your audience is searching for
- Content: Creating helpful blogs that can be easily understood by the readers
- Meta Title and Meta Descriptions: The titles and descriptions that are displayed on SERP’s
- Images alt text: Including images that are related to the topic and make sure that the images contain the keywords.
- URL: Search engine friendly URLs with keywords in it
In the world of SEO, on-page SEO is just a part. However, in the past, webmasters and marketers used to rank by only focusing on-page SEO practices.
2) Off-Page SEO (Backlinks)
Back in the day, backlinks were the top ranking factor, and they remained so for a while. Search engines consider it an endorsement signal when someone links to your content.
However, as with anything, when people and websites began to overoptimize or use black-hat SEO strategies, Google caught on to the patterns and released algorithm updates to counter them.
Today, the majority of off-page SEO includes link-building techniques such as Guest posts, Niche edits (Link insertions), HARO, and Digital PR.
Currently, Google has stated that backlinks are not the top 3 ranking factors but we at our agency believe otherwise because we have seen the results for our clients who ranked their content using strategic link building. (Our Case Studies)
3) Technical SEO
Technical SEO is what helps search engines crawl your website and content in the first place. For the initial years in SEO, technical SEO didn’t have its place.
Even though people and websites knew it, they didn’t take it seriously until Google launched updates that focused on page speed and mobile-first indexing for search engine ranking.
There are many elements in technical SEO, but here are the few that matter: HTTPS, Page Speed, Mobile Responsiveness, Sitemap XML, Robots. txt files, and more.
It is best to learn how SEO has evolved from its beginnings to understand it as a whole.
How has SEO changed over the years?
In the early days of the internet, people used to get away with SEO strategies like overoptimizing and link spamming to win at SEO. This meant that weird-looking sites with questionable content started ranking higher than good websites.
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane of these SEO techniques:
- Meta keywords: Back in the early 2000s, websites could rank high just by stuffing meta tags with keywords, regardless of content quality.
- Keyword stuffing: In the early 2000s and after, most pages looked like a keyword salad. In 2011, Google’s Panda update ended this practice, prioritizing high-quality content instead.
- Exact match domains (EMD): Until 2012, if you had keywords in your domain (for example, best-seo-tips.com), you would rank instantly. However, these patterns seem to exist even today, but there is no way a website with EMD can rank instantly as it was before.
- Link farms and low-quality backlinks: In early 2010, websites ranked on top because of the number of backlinks, not the quality.
- Keyword density: After keyword stuffing, keyword density became the new trend and people started using keywords which hold no meaning in the content to make search engines believe that the content is relevant and useful.
- Submitting to web directories: Once upon a time, directory submission was a thing. Once Google understood its real value for off-page SEO, this technique went down the drain.
Over the years, search engines like Google have evolved because of nasty SEO tactics that have emerged in the SEO industry.
Today, when you see Google understanding search intent and giving us valuable content for each relevant search is because of algorithm updates.
Below we have divided how SEO changed over the years based on some stages
Stage 1: Google launched PageRank
Back in 1998, Google revolutionized search with PageRank. This algorithm ranked pages based on their backlink profile. The more links a page had, the more important Google thought it was.
Interestingly, instead of focusing on the content, Google supported backlinks and began to give preference to content with backlinks.
Anyway, here’s the kicker: once people figured this out, they went link-crazy!
Websites started to gather backlinks like there is no tomorrow and forgot about the quality. Google soon understood that they had to do something more.
Stage 2: Google’s limelight went to keyword stuffing
After PageRank was misused, Google ceased to disclose information about it and did not offer any information to prevent its misuse.
However, in the early 2000s, people started to stuff keywords into every place possible, including the headings and footers and even the white text on the white background.
Weird websites with spun content were ranking on search engines, and Google caught on to that quickly. With updates like Florida (2003) and Panda (2011), they started favouring quality content over keyword-stuffed nonsense
Stage 3: Google took technical SEO into play
In 2010, Google started to focus on technical SEO. They began to focus on sites with strong technical aspects, such as HTTPS, clean sitemaps, and proper robots.txt files.
This was to be done to remove websites that did not prioritize their website development, and it was not a ranking factor. Instead it was a way for Google to tell a website, ‘Show us if you’re real’
This meant that if websites had back-end code issues and were not secured enough, Google did not give them much attention in terms of crawling and indexing.
Stage 4: Google took another dig at spam links
By 2012, Google’s Penguin update was a body kick to the spammy link practices.
So-called SEO professionals wanted to tell Google that they had quality backlinks and to do that; they used link farms and other spam techniques.
To combat these spam link practices, Google started considering quality backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites.
Quantity? Out. Quality and relevance? In.
Stage 5: Google takes user experience seriously
Why do search engines exists? To help people with their searches!
At this stage, searches were no longer done using text. Local SEO and voice search became common, so Google started to focus on intent and relevance
Since Google built its whole ecosystem around different types of searches, user experience is given the utmost importance.
Because the search experience doesn’t end with users clicking on SERPs, user’s engagement with websites in search engines also contributes to their experience.
Hence, Google went all in on user experience with mobile-first indexing (2018) and Core Web Vitals (2021).
They wanted websites to be fast, secure, technically correct, and responsive as more and more people were using their mobiles to search.
In fact, different results started popping up in mobile searches compared to desktop searches as they wanted the best user search experience for each type of search.
Stage 6: Google wasn’t happy with AI and its overuse
In 2022, Google came down hard on the use of AI content for the purpose of SEO. They wanted useful, human-interpreted, and helpful content for it’s users.
At this point, the Google algorithm was so sophisticated that it began to read the content and understood the context without having to rely much on keywords and other signals.
Google never planned to demote AI content. They only had issues with content that wasn’t useful in any way to its search users, be it AI or human-generated. Therefore, the update was called ‘Helpful Content Update’
This meant that you could incorporate AI as a tool, but quality and uniqueness mattered the most
Stage 7: Google is moving towards context and branding
Today, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is not only about rankings, it is about the presence on the internet. Google is becoming way smarter, it can grasp the context and the user’s intention better than ever before.
To be good at SEO, apart from SEO, you need also to be good at content strategy, PR, UX design, and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization).
Companies that once focused on channels such as SEO are now shifting to a multi-channel approach, even if SEO remains the pillar of their marketing strategy.
Hence, creating a brand that offers real value with content is becoming more of an importance to Google.
Tools like Search Generative Experience (SGE) are yet to take over, and search engines might shift to a a new paradigm.
History of SEO (Based on Algorithm Updates)
SEO is older than Google. In the 1990s, websites either looked like directories or were used as catalogs by businesses.
However, when we discuss SEO, we always mean Google SEO since it is the most popular search engine even though it was not the first one.
Let us look at the history of SEO in relation to Google’s algorithm updates.
From 1990-1999: Search Engines appeared on the scene
Do you know AltaVista and Ask Jeeves? They were the early search engines in the market.
They were the precursors of the modern search engines but they were very much prone to manipulation. Keyword stuffing was the order of the day.
However, in the 1990s, having a website was not considered a real thing by the masses, so SEO was still a baby.
From 2000-2009: Google Algorithms got Started
Google shook things up with its Florida update in November 2003.
This was the first major algorithm update, which targeted keyword stuffing and other black hat SEO practices. From this point on, SEO wasn’t just about keywords anymore!
From 2010-2019: Era of ‘Content is King’
- Panda (Feb 2011): Panda focused on penalizing poor-quality content in the SERPs, including low-quality content and content farms.
- Penguin (Apr 2012): This update was focused on webspam, especially on the use of manipulative link building techniques. It targeted sites with unnatural backlink profiles.
- Hummingbird (Aug 2013): Hummingbird enhanced Google’s ability to understand the intent and the context of each search query.
- RankBrain (Oct 2015): This update was used by Google to interpret and make sense of queries that were unclear or even new to the search engine. This signified Google’s move towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML).
- Mobilegeddon (Apr 2015): This update prioritized mobile-friendly pages in mobile search results, causing website owners to focus on mobile-friendly web designs.
- Possum (Sep 2016): Possum impacted local search results, and made the physical location of a business more important to avoid any duplicate listings
- Fred (Mar 2017): This update targeted websites that prioritized ads ratio over user experience.
- Mobile-First Indexing (Mar 2018): With this update, Google pushed mobile friendly sites with better ranking
- Medic (Aug 2018): Medic mainly affected the health and wellness websites. It focused on the concept of E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) in the creation of content. Soon this became E-EAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness)
- BERT (Oct 2019): BERT focused on natural language processing. It enhanced the understanding of the search queries, including the long-tail and keywords and voice search
From 2020 to now: New Search Experience and Improved Algorithms
- MUM (May 2021): Multitask Unified Model (MUM) is an advancement to BERT. It can process language and create content and analyze data in text, images, and videos in 75 languages.
- Page Experience & Core Web Vitals (Jun 2021): This update introduced user experience as a ranking factor. It focused on loading speed, navigation, and all other page experience signals.
- Link Spam Update (Jul 2021): Google penalized low-quality and irrelevant links. This update wanted websites with natural and high quality backlinks in to be prioritized.
- Product Review (Apr 2021): This update rewards in-depth, helpful product reviews. It favors content with new information that doesn’t exist already, which is helpful for sites offering real expert product reviews.
- Helpful Content Update (Aug 2022): This update focused on content created by users that gave a positive experience on the site. In short, Google didn’t wanted to prioritize AI content.
- Helpful Content Update (Sep 2023): The September 2023 update altered the wording in the documentation from ‘content written by people for people’ to ‘content created for people’. This meant irrespective of how the content was created, it needed to be helpful for the searches.
- August 2024 Core Update: This update was intended to encourage more relevant content, especially from small and independent publishers, as a result of the feedback received since the helpful content update of September 2023.
Wrap Up
The evolution of SEO is truly something else. New technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are changing the future in a new direction, and that is even more interesting.
The old days of SEO are gone when content, rankings, and traffic meant everything. From today onwards, SEO should stand for (Search Everywhere Optimization).
This is because Google loves to push brands in rankings, and you cannot build a brand if people cannot find you on multiple platforms, including Social Media. Thus, ‘Search Everywhere’ Optimization.
At PullingOffStrategies, we are convinced that the future of SEO lies in producing quality content, optimizing the user experience, and building a brand that is relevant to the target audience.
So, if you want to embrace this new SEO evolution and open up to new growth possibilities, please don’t hesitate to schedule a call with us.
