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[[Webmaster]]s and content providers began optimizing websites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early [[World Wide Web|Web]]. Initially, webmasters submitted the address of a page, or [[Uniform Resource Locator|URL]] to the various search engines, which would send a [[web crawler]] to ''crawl'' that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be [[Index (search engine)|indexed]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.thinkpink.com/bp/Thesis/Thesis.pdf| title=Finding What People Want: Experiences with the WebCrawler| access-date=May 7, 2007| publisher=The Second International WWW Conference Chicago, USA, October 17–20, 1994| author=Brian Pinkerton| archive-date=May 8, 2007| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070508124837/http://www.thinkpink.com/bp/Thesis/Thesis.pdf| url-status=live}}</ref>
According to a 2004 article by former industry analyst and current [[Google]] employee [[Danny Sullivan (technologist)|Danny Sullivan]], the phrase "search engine optimization"
Early versions of search [[algorithm]]s relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword [[meta tag]] or index files in engines like [[Aliweb|ALIWEB]]. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using metadata to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Flawed data in meta tags, such as those that were inaccurate or incomplete, created the potential for pages to be mischaracterized in irrelevant searches.<ref>{{Citation|chapter=The Challenge is Open|date=2020-11-17|title=Brain vs Computer|pages=189–211|publisher=WORLD SCIENTIFIC|doi=10.1142/9789811225017_0009|isbn=978-981-12-2500-0|s2cid=243130517}}</ref>{{dubious|date=October 2012}}
Web content providers also manipulated attributes within the [[HTML]] source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~lloyd/tilde/InterNet/Search/1998_WWW7.html |title=What is a tall poppy among web pages? |date=April 1998 |website=Monash University |access-date=May 8, 2007 |author=Pringle, G. |author2=Allison, L. |author3=Dowe, D. |archive-date=April 27, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070427161650/http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~lloyd/tilde/InterNet/Search/1998_WWW7.html}}</ref> By 1997, search engine designers recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank in search engines and that some webmasters were [[spamdexing|manipulating their rankings]] in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as [[Altavista]] and [[Infoseek]], adjusted their algorithms to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.<ref name="infoseeknyt">{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DF123BF932A25752C1A960958260|title=Desperately Seeking Surfers|date=November 11, 1996|newspaper=New York Times|author=Laurie J. Flynn|access-date=May 9, 2007|archive-date=October 30, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030131226/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DF123BF932A25752C1A960958260|url-status=live}}</ref>
By heavily relying on factors such as [[keyword density]], which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their [[Search engine results page|results page]]s showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. This meant moving away from heavy reliance on term density to a more holistic process for scoring semantic signals.<ref name="Forbes">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2016/01/20/is-keyword-density-still-important-for-seo/2/#2ef69ba36733|title=Is Keyword Density Still Important for SEO|author=Jason Demers|date=January 20, 2016|magazine=Forbes|access-date=August 15, 2016|archive-date=August 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816221641/http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2016/01/20/is-keyword-density-still-important-for-seo/2/#2ef69ba36733|url-status=live}}</ref> ▼
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Search engines responded by developing more complex [[Search algorithm|ranking algorithms]], taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}
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