anniversary of the web

It’s hard to imagine what a web-less world would look like. Just like most of us probably find it quite difficult to picture life without electricity, cars, and of course (smart) phones. Looking back, you could say that history has a way of allowing  us to take a leap by coming up with something big every century. It’s the light bulb in the 19th, and everything else that we’ve accomplished through electricity. The automobile, and then air travel in the 20th. As for the 21st century- its first two decades , at least- it’s the web and the digital world it made possible. Yes, the web has come of age. On March 12th, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the web. Okay, we have this great and powerful tool. Do we make the most of it? Can more people benefit from it? How can the web become truly global? How can it be more useful and more secure? In this USNews.com piece, its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee talked about the significance of this anniversary. The 25th Anniversary of the Web: Looking Back No one can argue that the 25th anniversary of the web is a milestone. It’s a time when you look back to see what happened during this quarter of a century, and ahead, toward what might come next. Here are some key highlights. The Birth of the World Wide Web 1989 is not only the year when the Berlin wall fell, putting an end to the Cold War, and opening the gateway to democracy throughout Eastern Europe, but also the year when the idea that would make the democracy of information possible was born. That’s right, we’re speaking about the web. In the first spring month of that year, Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal with what was to become the blueprint of the web to his boss at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Although this physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland, could not support software projects, Tim Berners-Lee was allowed to work on his idea, which he did, creating what today we know as the world wide web. The Advent of Commercial Internet Web Landmarks in the 1990s. A Basic Timeline 1990: The Web Goes Public. 1991: WorldWideWeb After his proposal in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee got down to work and came up with the world’s first browser. Originally dubbed WorldWideWeb, it was later renamed Nexus. 1992: Internet Surfing The terms “surfing the Internet” and “net surfing” are first used. 1993: Mosaic This was the first cross platform browser, and the first browser with a graphic interface. Easy to install and use, it fueled the exponential development of the Internet in the early 1990s. 1994: Netscape Navigator Mosaic turned into Netscape Navigator which was the first commercial browser. It dominated the browser scene in the early 1990s, until it was displaced by Internet Explorer. 1995: E-Commerce The mid nineties witnessed beginnings of  e-shopping  which was to change the way we buy and sell things. From amazon.com selling its first book online in 1995 to sales totaling over 1 trillion dollars in 2012, e-commerce has become instrumental for business success. 1997: Google Google.com becomes a registered domain. From then on, search engines and browsing change for good. 1995-2000: The Dot-Com Boom and the Dot-Com Bubble. SEO According to Wikipedia, the term “search engine optimization” was first used in 1997. Search engine optimization, that aimed to increase website ranking in search engines, came a long way since its inception days. Along the way, in the battle for visibility, webmasters and website owners used black hat strategies, such as link farming and spammy content to increase ranking. Now, recent Google updates such as Penguin and Panda, made it clear that this is not the game to play if you want to thrive online. Instead, organic search engine optimization and white hat SEO practices are not only encouraged, but a must. According to moz.com, Google refreshes its search algorithm about five to six hundred times every year. In SEO terms, 2011- 2013 are perhaps the most important years in web history so far. Google released several updates that marked a radical shift in search engine optimization practices during the past two years. Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird and several other updates are reshaping the way we relate to the web and the meaning of online presence, for both businesses and users. To get a more accurate idea about the impact of Google updates, check the above mentioned article on moz.com where you’ll find a detailed timeline. It’s enough to mention here only three of the most relevant updates released by Google starting with 2011. Google Panda Fist released in February 2011, Panda targeted ‘low quality’ websites, penalizing counterfeit links and duplicate, spammy content. Google Penguin Released in April 2012, it declared a war against black hat SEO tactics, making it clear that link schemes were no longer tolerated to promote search engine ranking. Hummingbird Update For its 15th anniversary, in September 2013, Google launched a new algorithm update. It was called Hummingbird and it aimed to make search more conversational. What’s the effect of  the updates released by Google in recent years? What’s their impact on SEO strategy? What does it mean for your web presence? Where is the web headed? Read on for some answers. Google’s Algorithm Changes and SEO Having a solid SEO strategy is no longer optional. It is mandatory for for business success.  A well crafted SEO strategy makes the difference between being visible and being swamped in the online clutter. From No Man’s Land to Integrated Architecture Today, the cornerstones of an effective SEO strategy and successful web presence are original content, white hat link building and social media. What does this mean? Creating Value and Building Authority Through Organic SEO and Original Content Onsite content is paramount to build credibility online and ultimately convert. Content and SEO work in tandem because the role of good SEO is to structure, organize, and optimize the content on your pages. The … Read more