SEO: The milestones

The fact that search engine optimisation (SEO) has grown into such a large industry at such a rapid speed "seems impossible" to one sector commentator.

Writing on the online pages of e-consultancy, Kevin Gibbons - director of search at SEOptimise - said it all began in 1989 when a list of all the websites was compiled and monitored by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet.

In 1993, Aliweb became what could arguably be listed as the web's first ever search engine - leading the way for other portals such as HotBot, Excite, Lycos and Google.

However, according to Mr Gibbons, it was not until 1997 that webmasters began to appreciate the value of search engine rankings and black hat and white hat processes developed - the former which tricks portals into higher rankings and the latter which does this by fulfilling set demands.

Today SEO is seen as vital to many businesses, however, there are still ways to trick search engines into awarding higher rankings, such as using spam-like techniques.

However, Phillip Lensses, cited on the online pages of the Axandra, recently warned that Google is able to completely remove a website from search results if this is discovered.

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