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==Big picture==
{| class="wikitable"
! Time period !! Development summary !! More details
|-
| 2015 onward || Mobile search era ||
|-
|}
{| class="wikitable"
! Year !! Month and date !! Event type !! Details
|-
| 1945 || || || Dr.American engineer {{w|Vannevar Bush in 1945 Introduced }} introduces the concept of “collection of data and observations, the extraction of parallel material from the existing record, and the final insertion of new material into the general body of the common record.”<ref name="amcodigital.com">{{cite web |title=THE HISTORY OF SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION) |url=https://www.amcodigital.com/history-of-seo/ |website=amcodigital.com |accessdate=7 January 2020}}</ref> "The need for search engines was first noted in 1945 when American engineer and scientist Vannevar Bush published an article in The Atlantic Monthly, emphasizing emphasizes the necessity for an expansive index for all knowledge, stating: "[Information] has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record. A record, if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored...Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of the systems of indexing. The human mind does not work this way. It operates by association.""<ref name="whatisseo.comd">{{cite web |title=History of Search Engines |url=https://www.whatisseo.com/history-of-search-engines.html |website=whatisseo.com |accessdate=7 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pariser |first1=Eli |title=The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From You |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=-FWO0puw3nYC&pg=PT165&dq=vannevar+bush+1945+collection+of+data&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnm735idToAhXtIbkGHfNICPgQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=vannevar%20bush%201945%20collection%20of%20data&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Gary |last2=Benke |first2=Meg |last3=Chaloux |first3=Bruce |last4=Ragan |first4=Lawrence C. |last5=Schroeder |first5=Raymond |last6=Smutz |first6=Wayne |last7=Swan |first7=Karen |title=Leading the e-Learning Transformation of Higher Education: Meeting the Challenges of Technology and Distance Education |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=6jeFAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT84&dq=vannevar+bush+1945+collection+of+data&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnm735idToAhXtIbkGHfNICPgQ6AEISjAE#v=onepage&q=vannevar%20bush%201945%20collection%20of%20data&f=false}}</ref>
|-
| 1987 || || || "Search engine [[w:Archie (search engine)|Archie began ]] begins as a project for students and staff at {{w|McGill in 1987University}}, and the aim of the project was with aims to connect the McGill University School of Computer Science to the internet."<ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms">{{cite web |title=The History of Search Engine Optimization |url=https://www.tellmeyourgoal.com/the-history-of-search-engine-optimization |website=tellmeyourgoal.com |accessdate=10 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=ARCHIE SEARCH ENGINE FROM MCGILL UNIVERSITY |url=http://www.historyofdomainnames.com/archie/ |website=historyofdomainnames.com |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=ARCHIE SEARCH ENGINE |url=http://community.worldheritage.org/articles/eng/Archie_search_engine |website=worldheritage.org |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref>
|-
| 1990 || || || "Several decades later, in 1990, McGill University student {{w|Alan Emtage created }} launches [[w:Archie, which some say was the very first (search engine -- though that remains up for debate, according )|Archie]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Archie |url=https://twitter.com/mcgillu/status/1039248155211124737?lang=en |website=twitter.com |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref> Designed to research from Bill Slawskisearch and store directory listings on file transfer protocol sites, president and founder of SEO it is considered by the Sea. However, Archie was what Slawski called the “best way some to find information from other servers around be the internet at the time,” and is actually still (very primitive) operation."first [[w:Web search engine|search engine]]<ref name="A Brief History of Search & SEO"/> "The first search engine - it searched Archie searches {{w|File Transfer Protocol}} (FTP ) sites to create index of downloadable files.4 Due to limited space, only the listings were are available and not for the contents for each site".<ref name="wordstream.come"/> "In 1990, McGill University student Alan Emtage created an Archie, which some say was the very first search engine."<ref name="amcodigital.com"/> ". The development of Archie (named for "archives"), the very first search engine created in 1990, was designed to search and store directory listings on file transfer protocol sites."<ref name="whatisseo.comd"/> "Archie – First search engine created by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal."<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1990 || || || "Search Methods Before the Internet – Phonebook"<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1991 || || || "English computer scientist {{w|Tim Berners-Lee set up a }} in {{w|Geneva}} launches his WWW Virtual Library<code>vlib.org</code>. CERN webserver hosted a list of webservers in It is considered the early age of oldest catalog on the Internet"[[w:World Wide Web|Web]].<ref name="wordstream.come">{{cite web |title=THE HISTORY OF SEARCH ENGINES |url=https://www.wordstream.com/articles/internet-search-engines-history |website=wordstream.com |accessdate=7 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Van Rys |first1=John |last2=Meyer |first2=Verne |last3=Sebranek |first3=Patrick |title=The Research Writer, Spiral bound Version |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=g4HP5TIs2-cC&pg=PA84&dq=Tim+Berners-Lee+set+up+a+Virtual+Library+%221991%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2l_vUlNToAhXTILkGHRNVD5IQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=Tim%20Berners-Lee%20set%20up%20a%20Virtual%20Library%20%221991%22&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Scheeren |first1=William O. |title=The Hidden Web: A Sourcebook |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=KgTqbPXQqroC&pg=PA46&dq=Tim+Berners-Lee+set+up+a+Virtual+Library+%221991%22+vlib.org&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCgvDOltToAhWNI7kGHTwQCDIQ6AEIMzAB#v=onepage&q=Tim%20Berners-Lee%20set%20up%20a%20Virtual%20Library%20%221991%22%20vlib.org&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Tortosa |first1=Virgilio |title=Escrituras digitales: tecnologías de la creación en la era virtual |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=5UF-g_q2rqQC&pg=PA179&dq=Tim+Berners-Lee+set+up+a+Virtual+Library+%221991%22+vlib.org&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCgvDOltToAhWNI7kGHTwQCDIQ6AEIPDAC#v=onepage&q=Tim%20Berners-Lee%20set%20up%20a%20Virtual%20Library%20%221991%22%20vlib.org&f=false}}</ref>|-| 1991 || || || The first website is developed for the [[w:SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (work)|Stanford Linear Accelerator Center]].<ref name="William R.">{{cite book |last1=Parkhurst |first1=William R. |title=Routing First-step |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=IzR8ycHGTEkC&pg=PA279&lpg=PA279&dq=%221993%22+%22600+websites%22&source=bl&ots=P7bG2az1m1&sig=ACfU3U3M67pbWKsSJifP7hSGSq3Lw_eiqA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwith_WnuNToAhVzIrkGHWoCCHkQ6AEwCnoECAUQKQ#v=onepage&q=%221993%22%20%22600%20websites%22&f=false}}</ref>
|-
| 1991 || || || "It is believed that SEO was born in 1991. Around this time, the world’s first website was launched, and one quickly turned into many as websites crowded the internet. So, there was a huge need for structure and accessibility, and the world’s first search engines were created. "<ref name="bluefrogdm.coms">{{cite web |title=A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEO |url=https://www.bluefrogdm.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-seo |website=bluefrogdm.com |accessdate=7 January 2020}}</ref>
|-
| 1992 1991 || || || "[[w:Gopher (protocol)|Gopher]] system is released by Mark P. McCahill, Farhad Anklesaria, Paul Lindner, in 1992Daniel Torrey, and Bob Alberti of the {{w|University of Minnesota}}<ref name="wwwunleashed">{{cite book|last=December|last2=Randall|first=John|first2=Neil|page=[https://archive.org/details/worldwidewebunle00dece/page/20 20]|title=The World Wide Web unleashed|year=1994|publisher=Sams Publishing|isbn=1-57521-040-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/worldwidewebunle00dece/page/20}}</ref> Gopher became is considered to be the first search engine using a hypertext paradigm. "<ref name="thehistoryofseo.com">{{cite web |title=The History of Search Engine Optimization |url=http://www.thehistoryofseo.com/The-Industry/The_History_of_Search_Engine_Optimization.aspx |website=thehistoryofseo.com |accessdate=6 January 2020}}</ref>|-| 1992 || || || "VLib"<ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/>|- | 1993 || || || "In 1993, Excite revolutionized how information was categorized"<ref name="bluefrogdm.coms"/>|-| 1993 || || || "For example, in 1992, Gopher became the first search engine using a hypertext paradigm. Only a year later, the graphical Mosaic web browser improved Gopher’s primarily text-based interface. About the same time, Wandex became the first search engine to crawl the web indexing and searching indexed pages on the web."<ref name="thehistoryofseo.com"/>
|-
| 1993 || February || || "For exampleSix Stanford students create Architext, in 1992, Gopher became a project seeking to use statistical analysis of word relationships to improve relevancy of searches on the Internet. Architext would later become the first search engine using a hypertext paradigm{{w|Excite}}.<ref name="thehistoryofseo. Only a year later, the graphical Mosaic com">{{cite web browser improved Gopher’s primarily text|title=Short History of Early Search Engines |url=http://www.thehistoryofseo.com/The-based interfaceIndustry/Short_History_of_Early_Search_Engines.aspx |website=thehistoryofseo. About the same timecom |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref> Excite would revolutionize how information is categorized, Wandex became the first search engine making it easier to crawl the web indexing find information “by sorting results based on keywords found within content and searching indexed pages on the backend optimization.”<ref name="A Brief History of Search & SEO">{{cite web|title=A Brief History of Search & SEO |url=https://blog.hubspot."com/marketing/a-brief-history-of-search-seo |website=blog.hubspot.com |accessdate=6 January 2020}}</ref><ref name="thehistoryofseobluefrogdm.coms"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Livingston |first1=Jessica |title=Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days |url=https://books.google.com".ar/books?id=ktm885vGIXEC&pg=PA61&dq=%22architext%22+%221993%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWiPeJsdToAhXPFbkGHU-sCR4Q6AEIPzAD#v=onepage&q=%22architext%22%20%221993%22&f=false}}</ref>
|-
| 1993 || February || || "February 1993The graphical Mosaic web browser improves [[w: Six Stanford students create Architext, which would later become the search engine Excite. Some, like Search Engine Land Gopher (SELprotocol), say that Excite “revolutionized how information was cataloged,” making it easier to find information “by sorting results |Gopher]]’s primarily text-based on keywords found within content and backend optimizationinterface.”"<ref name="A Brief History of Search & SEO">{{cite web |title=A Brief History of Search & SEO |url=https://blog.hubspotthehistoryofseo.com"/marketing/a-brief-history-of-search-seo |website=blog.hubspot.com |accessdate=6 January 2020}}</ref>
|-
| 1993 || June || || "June 1993: Matthew Gray debuts at {{w|MIT}} develops the web crawler, {{w|World Wide Web Wanderer}}, which later became known as Wandexto measure the size of the Web."<ref name="A Brief History of Search & SEO"/> "World Wide Web Wanderer. Created by Matthew Gray; a bot counted active web servers and “measured the growth” of the Internet. Bot was soon upgraded to capture actual URLs. Database was called Wandex. Bot accessed same page hundreds of times a day and caused lag"<ref name="wordstream.come"/> "Wanderer – The first web crawler to measure the size of the web. Created by Matthew Gray"<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1993 || October || Search engine launch || "Web search engine {{w|Aliweb Launched – Allowed }} launches. Created by Martijn Koster, it allows users to submit the locations of index files on their sites."<ref name="seo.comf"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Maze |first1=Susan |last2=Moxley |first2=David |last3=Smith |first3=Donna J. |title=Authoritative Guide to Web Search Engines |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=ZkxqAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Aliweb%22+%221993%22&dq=%22Aliweb%22+%221993%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUwJaDttToAhUiHbkGHb6JDMsQ6AEIYzAH}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Auxiliar Administrativo. Servicio Canario de Salud. SCS. Temario Vol. II. |edition=Editorial CEP |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=7y-xDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA326&dq=%22Aliweb%22+%221993%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUwJaDttToAhUiHbkGHb6JDMsQ6AEIODAC#v=onepage&q=%22Aliweb%22%20%221993%22&f=false}}</ref><ref name="ddd">{{cite book |title=Enhancing the Power of the Internet |edition=Masoud Nikravesh, Ben Azvine, Ronald R. Yager, Lofti A. Zadeh |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=R2f8CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA17&dq=%22Aliweb%22+%221993%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUwJaDttToAhUiHbkGHb6JDMsQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=%22Aliweb%22%20%221993%22&f=false}}</ref>
|-
| 1993 || || || "There are approximately 600 + Websites Online"websites online at the time.<ref name="seo.comf"/><ref name="William R."/>
|-
| 1993 || || || "The are about 10 Million + Internet Usersmillion internet users at the time."<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1993 || || || "Primitive Web Search"<ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/>
|-
| 1993 || Late year || || {{w|World Wide Web Wanderer}} is used to generate an index called the "Wandex", an early web search engine.<ref>{{cite web |title=The First Web Search Engine? |url=historyofinformation |website=historyofinformation.com |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref> {{w|Wandex}} becomes the first search engine to crawl the web indexing and searching indexed pages on the Web.<ref name="thehistoryofseo.com"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Odom |first1=Sean |title=Seo for 2011: Search Engine Optimization Secrets |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=A-dVj39Q71oC&pg=PA13&dq=%22Wandex%22+%221993%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhi8zRr9ToAhXHEbkGHcddBP0Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22Wandex%22%20%221993%22&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ledford |first1=Jerri L. |title=Search Engine Optimization Bible |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=2Gz-CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA5&dq=%22Wandex%22+%221993%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhi8zRr9ToAhXHEbkGHcddBP0Q6AEIMTAB#v=onepage&q=%22Wandex%22%20%221993%22&f=false}}</ref>|-| 1994 || January || || "Yahoo was created by {{w|Stanford University }} students {{w|Jerry Wang }} and {{w|David Filo }} create {{w|Yahoo!}} in a campus trailer. Yahoo was starts originally as an Internet bookmark list and directory of interesting sites. Webmasters had have to manually submit their page to the Yahoo directory for indexing so that it would be there for Yahoo to find when someone performed a search. AltaVista, Excite, <ref>{{cite book |last1=So |first1=Shermon |last2=Westland |first2=J.Christopher |title=Red Wired: China’s Internet revolution |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=vbqIAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=%22yahoo%22+%221994%22+%22wang%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidqce2vtToAhX4HLkGHcw-BL4Q6AEIVDAF#v=onepage&q=%22yahoo%22%20%221994%22%20%22wang%22&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Huff |first1=Priscilla Y |title=Business and Lycos also launchedIndustry |url=https://books.google.com."ar/books?id=mywYAAAAIAAJ&q=%22yahoo%22+%221994%22+%22wang%22+%22filo%22&dq=%22yahoo%22+%221994%22+%22wang%22+%22filo%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNs-HSvtToAhWNErkGHVkZBGkQ6AEIKDAA}}</ref><ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/><ref name="wordstream.come"/>
|-
| 1994 || || || " the first full-text search engine, WebCrawler created in 1994 by Brian Pinkerton. Prior to this, only webpage names/domains were indexed in catalogues."<ref name="whatisseo.comd"/> "WebCrawler – First search engine to index full web pages and allow searchers to search with any word."<ref name="seo.comf"/>
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| 1994 || || || "The earliest pioneers in the field of SEO also found the Internet not only interesting, but a viable industry money maker. For example in 1994, Greg Boser discovered that he could use the Internet to sell protective foam equipment to fight fires. He built a website and started seeking ways to drive potential customers to his site for sales."<ref name="thehistoryofseo.com"/>
|-
| 1994 || || || The number of websites grows to 10,000, up from 600 websites in 1993.<ref name="William R."/>
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| 1995 || || || " For example in 1995, John Audette formed Multi-Media Marketing Group (MMG) in Lake Oswego, Oregon on the sale of 4,000 copies of his $30 online book about marketing on the World Wide Web."<ref name="thehistoryofseo.com"/>
|-
| 1996 1995 || Late year || || {{w|Excite}} is commercially released as a crawling search engine.<ref>{{cite book |last1=DESAI |first1=SANDEEP |last2=SRIVASTAVA |first2=ABHISHEK |title=SOFTWARE TESTING : A Practical Approach | url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=B4sQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA280&dq=Excite+1995&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibwo7-pNToAhVFE7kGHU08B3kQ6AEIQjAD#v=onepage&q=Excite%201995&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Comm | first1=Joel |title=Click Here to Order: Stories of the World's Most Successful Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs | url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=YkEdWYvuUk8C&pg=PA263&dq=Excite+1995&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibwo7-pNToAhVFE7kGHU08B3kQ6AEIUjAF#v=onepage&q=Excite%201995&f=false}}</ref><ref name=" Page and Brinthehistoryofseo.com"/> |-| 1995 || || || The number of websites grows to 100,000, up from 10, two 000 websites in 1994.<ref name="William R."/>|-| 1996 || January || || {{w|Stanford University }} students, built {{w|Larry Page}} and {{w|Sergey Brin}} build and tested test Backrub, a new search engine that ranked ranks sites based on inbound link relevancy and popularity. Backrub would ultimately become {{w|Google}}. HotBot<ref>{{cite book |last1=Breverton |first1=Terry |title=Breverton's Encyclopedia of Inventions: A Compendium of Technological Leaps, powered by Inktomi, also launchedGroundbreaking Discoveries and Scientific Breakthroughs that Changed the World |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=VepgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT559&dq=backrub+1996&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSo8P3qNToAhVUDrkGHd4jBoYQ6AEIMTAB#v=onepage&q=backrub%201996&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=MIRANDA GONZALEZ |first1=FRANCISCO JAVIER |last2=RUBIO LACOBA |first2=SERGIO |last3=CHAMORRO MERA |first3=ANTONIO |title=Dirección de operaciones. Casos prácticos y recursos didácticos |url=https://books.google.com."ar/books?id=N9r7CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA105&dq=backrub+1996&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSo8P3qNToAhVUDrkGHd4jBoYQ6AEIQzAD#v=onepage&q=backrub%201996&f=false}}</ref><ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/><ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1996 || May || || " Inktomi launched Hotbot in May, 1996 "<ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/>
|-
| 1996 || || || "The number of websites grows to 650 K + Websites Online,000, up from 100,000 websites in 1995."<ref name="seo.comf"/><ref name="William R."/>
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| 1996 || || || "The are about 74 Million + Internet million internet Usersat the time."<ref name="seo.comf"/>
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| 1997 || || || According to industry analyst [[w:Danny Sullivan (technologist)|Danny Sullivan]], the phrase "search engine optimization" probably comes into use around this time. Sullivan credits Bruce Clay as one of the first people to popularize the term.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showpost.php?p=2119&postcount=10|title=Who Invented the Term "Search Engine Optimization"?|author=Danny Sullivan|date=June 14, 2004|publisher=[[Search Engine Watch]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100423051708/http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showpost.php?p=2119|archive-date=23 April 2010|accessdate=May 14, 2007}} See [https://groups.google.com/group/alt.current-events.net-abuse.spam/browse_thread/thread/6fee2777dc17b8ab/3858bff94e56aff3?lnk=st&q=%22search+engine+optimization%22&rnum=1#3858bff94e56aff3 Google groups thread].</ref> "all signs definitely point to the term SEO originating around 1997."<ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization">{{cite web |title=20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization |url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101/seo-history/#close |website=searchenginejournal.com |accessdate=4 January 2020}}</ref> "In 1997, the words “search engine optimization” were first used by John Audette and Bruce Clay, and soon after SEO became a widely used term."<ref name="seo.comf">{{cite web |title=THE HISTORY OF SEARCH |url=https://www.seo.com/blog/the-history-of-search-infographic/ |website=seo.com |accessdate=10 January 2020}}</ref>
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| 1997 || April || || "April Davis Warthen and Garrett Gruener launch Ask Jeeves as a natural language search engine, using human editors to try to match search queries.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sajja |first1=Priti Srinivas |last2=Akerkar |first2=Rajendra |title=Intelligent Technologies for Web Applications |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=f_7RBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA88&dq=%22Ask+Jeeves%22+%22in+1997: %22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj35ryevNToAhXYCrkGHfJmD80Q6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=%22Ask%20Jeeves%22%20%22in%201997%22&f=false}}</ref> AskJeeves is introduced, later becoming Askbecomes <code>ask.com</code>."<ref name="seo.comf"/><ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/><ref name="ddd"/>
|-
| 1997 || September || || "September 1997: Google<code>google.com </code> is registered as a domain name."
|-
| 1997 || || || "Yandex Launched – Currently Russia’s largest search engine."<ref name="seo.comf"/>
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| 1997 || || || The number of websites surpasses 1,000,000, up from 650,000 websites in 1996.<ref name="William R."/><ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 1998 || || || {{w|Larry Page}} and {{w|Sergey Brin}}, then graduate students at {{w|Stanford University}}, develop "Backrub", a search engine that rely on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, {{w|PageRank}}, is a function of the quantity and strength of {{w|inbound link}}s.<ref name="lgscalehyptxt">{{cite web|author1=Brin, Sergey |author2=Page, Larry |lastauthoramp=yes |url=http://www-db.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html|title=The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine|publisher=Proceedings of the seventh international conference on World Wide Web|year=1998|pages=107–117|accessdate=3 January 2020}}</ref>
| 2001 || || || "“Many SEOs have sleepless nights as we realize it is Google or bust.” – Brett Tabke, Founder of WebmasterWorld."<ref name="seo.comf"/>
|-
| 2001 || Year round || || " By 2001, users are abandoning Users abandon search engines like {{w|Lycos}}, {{w|Excite}}, {{w|AltaVista }} and {{w|Hotbot}}."<ref name="A Brief History of SEOd"/>
|-
| 2002 || November 15 || || "The first recorded SEO Contest was {{w|Schnitzelmitkartoffelsalat}} by German webmasters, started on November 15, 2002, in the [[w:German language|German]]-language {{w|usenet}} group de.comm.infosystems.www.authoring.misc."
| 2012 || April || || "In April 2012, Google took what it called “another step to reward high-quality sites” with the first of many Penguin updates -- and, in the process of announcing it, acknowledged Bing’s month-earlier blog post on the changing face of SEO. "<ref name="A Brief History of Search & SEO"/> " Penguin 4.0 is the latest version of Penguin, which was originally introduced in April, 2012."<ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/>
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| 2012 || May || || "In May 2012, {{w|Google unveiled }} unveils the {{w|Knowledge Graph}}, a new visual interface that provides popular facts about people, places and things alongside Google's traditional results. This was constitutes a major shift away from interpreting keywords strings to understanding semantics and intent."<ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Google Testing Semantic Search Update |url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-semantic-search-update/43443/ |website=searchenginejournal.com |accessdate=4 January 2020}}</ref> The {{w|Knowledge Graph}} would become popular in knowledge representation and knowledge management applications widely across search engine, biomedical, media and industrial domains.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wasny |first1=Garrett |title=Advanced Googling: How to Search Smarter, Faster and More Efficiently on Google |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=2W3CAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA123&dq=%22Knowledge+Graph%22+%222012%22+%22google%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9uemPwdToAhU3F7kGHQ8VAl0Q6AEIQjAD#v=onepage&q=%22Knowledge%20Graph%22%20%222012%22%20%22google%22&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pan |first1=Jeff Z. |last2=Calvanese |first2=Diego |last3=Eiter |first3=Thomas |last4=Horrocks |first4=Ian |last5=Kifer |first5=Michael |last6=Lin |first6=Fangzhen |last7=Zhao |first7=Yuting |title=Reasoning Web: Logical Foundation of Knowledge Graph Construction and Query Answering: 12th International Summer School 2016, Aberdeen, UK, September 5-9, 2016, Tutorial Lectures |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=-J47DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=%22Knowledge+Graph%22+%222012%22+%22google%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9uemPwdToAhU3F7kGHQ8VAl0Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22Knowledge%20Graph%22%20%222012%22%20%22google%22&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Färber |first1=M. |title=Semantic Search for Novel Information |url=https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=wHc2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA23&dq=%22Knowledge+Graph%22+%222012%22+%22google%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9uemPwdToAhU3F7kGHQ8VAl0Q6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=%22Knowledge%20Graph%22%20%222012%22%20%22google%22&f=false}}</ref>
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| 2013 || October || || "launch of app indexing making apps appear alongside websites in search results"<ref name="A brief history of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)"/> "Google App Indexing was launched in October 2013 for a limited set of publishers."<ref>{{cite web |title=Google: App Indexing |url=https://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-app-indexing |website=searchengineland.com |accessdate=7 January 2020}}</ref>
| 2015 || May || || {{w|Mobile search}} surpasses desktop search.<ref>[https://adwords.blogspot.com/2015/05/building-for-next-moment.html "Inside AdWords: Building for the next moment" ''Google Inside Adwords'' May 15, 2015.]</ref>
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| 2015 || || || "Finally, in {{w|2015, we had }} is known as the Year of Mobile – , the point at which {{w|mobile searches overtook search}}es overtake {{w|desktop search }} for the first time on {{w|Google"}}.<ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/>
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| 2015 || October || || "In terms of search, we’ve already started to see the impact of AI with Google RankBrain. Announced in October 2015, RankBrain was initially used to try to interpret the 15 percent of searches that Google has never seen before, based on the words or phrases the user has entered."<ref name="20 Years of SEO: A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization"/><ref>{{cite web |title=A Complete Guide to the Google RankBrain Algorithm |url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-history/rankbrain/ |website=searchenginejournal.com |accessdate=4 January 2020}}</ref>
| 2016 || March–June || {{w|SEO contest}} || "Apex Forum SEO Contest 2016. Winner Scott Paxton. The keyword was "Club Penguin Walkthrough". Contest began on March 25th and went through June 22nd. There were lots of prizes totaling $8,684.04 for the winner with $1,000 in cash, $2,859.80 in prizes for second including $250 cash, and $1,769.80 in prizes for third including $100 cash."<ref name="Previous SEO Competitions"/>
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| 2016 || August || || "It wasn’t the last of Google’s mobile updates -- in August 2016, it announced Google announces a crackdown on mobile pop-ups."<ref name="A Brief History of Search & SEO"/>|-| 2017 || January || || {{w|Google}} introduces an algorithmic change called the “Intrusive Interstitial Penalty” in order to “punish aggressive interstitials and pop-ups that might damage the mobile user experience.”<ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/>
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| 2017 || January March || || "For instance, Google introduced an algorithmic change called the “Intrusive Interstitial Penalty” in January, 2017introduces update informally known as “Fred”, in order to “punish aggressive interstitials and pop-ups that might damage which would have a major impact on the mobile user experienceSEO community.”"<ref name="tellmeyourgoal.coms"/>
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| 2017 2018 || March June || || "As recently as March 2017of date, {{w|Google made one }} accounts for over 72.47% of these changes: this update is informally known as “Fred” (no formal name has yet been given)all global desktop search traffic, followed by {{w|Baidu}} at 13.47%, {{w|Bing}} at 7.64%, and {{w|Yahoo!}} at 4.74%. It is reported that “Fred” has already had a major impact on the SEO community"<ref name="tellmeyourgoalseoexpertbrad.comscomss">{{cite web |title=GOOGLE LOCAL SEO STATISTICS THAT EVERY SEARCH MARKETER SHOULD READ |url=https://seoexpertbrad.com/local-seo-stats/ |website=seoexpertbrad.com |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref>
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| 2018 || July || || "{{w|Google announced }} announces that from July 2018 then on, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches."<ref name="A brief history of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Using page speed in mobile search ranking |url=https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-in-mobile-search.html |website=webmasters.googleblog.com |accessdate=7 January 2020}}</ref>
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| 2020 || || || "Comscore predicts that by 2020 this year, 50% all searches will be voice."<ref name="A brief history of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Stat of the week – Voice Search |url=https://blog.zooma.se/en/blog/stat-of-the-week-voice-search |website=blog.zooma.se |accessdate=7 January 2020}}</ref>
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|}
* [https://blog.zooma.se/en/blog/a-brief-history-of-search-engine-optimization-seo]
* [https://www.bluefrogdm.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-seo]
* [https://seoexpertbrad.com/local-seo-stats/]