Internet History Feb. 27, 2003
Before going in to how to optimize your site for the various search engines it is important to understand the history of both the internet and the search engines themselves. After all it is easier to both understand and remember the basic rules of S.E.O. and S.E.M. (Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing) if you understand the various theories and background that went in to their creations.
The internet, as we know it today, did not start off as such. It started at the end of the 1950's and through the 1960's as ARPANET, Advanced Research Projects Agencey Network, by the U.S. government. The reason that it was started was to "combat" the growing technical advanves made by the Soviet Union after the launch of their Sputnik in 1957. One of the main ideas behind ARPANET was that if one computer went off line the other in the network should be able to continue to function. I.E.: If one city was bombed, thus taking the computer in that city off line (if not totally distroying it), the rest of the network would still work. Think about the main frame computers that were so popular back then (besides the fact that only large corporations could afford them), if the main compute was damaged and turned off then none of the terminals would work at all. In the present, if the server in your office was shut down you can still do most of the necessary functions on your computer (at least those that do not need "help" from the server). Another example of the is the numerous websites out there: Let's say that for some reason the servers that host the Google search engine all went off line at the same time. You could still visit all other web sites that are on other servers.
Another reason that the U.S. government took it upon themselves to start this network is that they could not rely on the computer industry to develop this network. Why? This is due to the fact that the coputer industry, similar to just about any other industry, works on profit, or expected profit. They simply did not see the dollar value in this network. A classic example of this came from the movie "Silicon Valley Heist", based upon the life of Bill Gates. At the beginning of Microsoft they created the DOS system form IBM. In a metting between IBM and Microsoft, Mr. Gates asked that he lease the DOS system for a certain time period to IBM instead of selling it. At the time the IBM executives did not see the potential value of software, instead it was believed that the majority of profits would be made by selling hardware and not software.
Looks like we got off track a bit...Back to ARPANET
At the end of the 1960's the first "network" was ready to be tested. It was decided that the network would be hosted by UCLA and UCSB. This is a critical fact in understanding the general background of the internet. Both of the hosts are universities and not commercial companies that sell products. If you think about it for a minute you can see why the internet is geared more towards open information and not just profits (although, as stated in the previous article, a large ammount of money can be made through the internet and SEO).
At aproximatlety the same time notes from the networking group meetings were saved in a format called RFC (Request for Comments). These notes were ment to gather responses from members and at the same time notify them of other members opinions and findings. It was hoped that keeping unoffical notes would better encourage people to publish their thoughts as they come, and not polish them for publication with the delays involved in rewriting and edition papers. This is very similarto the way newsgroups & forums now work, where people can openly ask questions and make comments as think of them.
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