1990
Archie indexes the internet’s filing cabinets
Alan Emtage’s Archie at McGill crawls FTP servers and lets you search file names. No page content, no ranking, just a list.
For SEO · Findability began as a filename problem.
Lab · 01
A short history of search, from filing cabinets to answers.
Thirty-six years in three parts. Scroll the timeline, then drag a results page through every era, then find out how much of it you actually remember.
Scroll to travel
1990
Archie indexes the internet’s filing cabinets
For SEO · Findability began as a filename problem.
19902026
1994
Full-text search and the human directory
WebCrawler indexes the full text of pages for the first time. Yahoo! starts as Jerry Yang and David Filo’s hand-built directory. Lycos arrives from Carnegie Mellon.
For SEO · Two models are born: machines reading pages, and humans curating lists. Both are still with us.
1996
BackRub counts links as votes
At Stanford, Larry Page and Sergey Brin build BackRub. PageRank treats a link as a vote and weighs votes by who casts them.
For SEO · Authority becomes measurable. Link building becomes an industry about ten minutes later.
1998
Google. Ten blue links.
Google incorporates in September 1998. A white page, a box, and results ranked by relevance and PageRank rather than by who paid.
For SEO · Relevance plus authority. The two levers every SEO still pulls.
2000
AdWords, and a toolbar that shows PageRank
Google launches AdWords in October. In December the Google Toolbar puts a little green PageRank bar in every browser.
For SEO · Paid and organic split into two disciplines. Everyone starts chasing a green bar.
2003
The Florida update
In November, Google’s Florida update knocks thousands of keyword-stuffed commercial pages out of the results weeks before Christmas.
For SEO · The first mass lesson that what works today can be penalised tomorrow.
2005
nofollow, Maps and Analytics
rel="nofollow" arrives in January to fight comment spam. Google Maps launches in February, Google Analytics in November.
For SEO · Local search gets a map, links get a switch, and measurement becomes free.
2007
Universal Search
News, images, video, maps and books start appearing inside the main results page instead of behind separate tabs.
For SEO · The ten blue links stop being ten and stop being only links.
2010
Caffeine and Instant
The Caffeine index makes fresh content findable in minutes. Google Instant shows results as you type.
For SEO · Freshness matters, and the query itself becomes something Google shapes.
2011
Panda, Schema.org and (not provided)
Panda targets thin, low-quality content in February. Google, Bing and Yahoo! agree Schema.org in June. In October, keyword data for signed-in users becomes (not provided).
For SEO · Quality becomes a ranking factor, structured data gets a shared vocabulary, and the keyword report starts to die.
2012
Penguin and the Knowledge Graph
Penguin goes after manipulative links in April. In May the Knowledge Graph puts facts about entities beside the results: things, not strings. It is also the year I started doing SEO.
For SEO · Links can hurt you now, and Google starts answering questions itself.
2013
Hummingbird
A rewrite of the core algorithm built for meaning and conversational queries rather than keyword matching.
For SEO · Topics and intent start to beat exact-match keywords.
2015
Mobilegeddon and RankBrain
In April, mobile-friendliness becomes a ranking signal for mobile searches. In October, Google confirms RankBrain, machine learning inside ranking.
For SEO · The phone becomes the primary device and the algorithm stops being fully explainable.
2018
Mobile-first indexing and the Medic update
Google begins indexing the mobile version of sites by default. August’s core update hits health, finance and other your-money-or-your-life sites hardest.
For SEO · Expertise, authority and trust move from the guidelines into the results.
2019
BERT
A language model that reads queries in context reaches ranking and featured snippets, affecting around one in ten English searches at launch.
For SEO · Write for people. There is no longer a way to write for the machine instead.
2021
Page experience and Core Web Vitals
Loading, interactivity and visual stability become measured ranking inputs through the page experience update.
For SEO · Performance work gets a scoreboard and a business case.
2022
Helpful content, then ChatGPT
August’s helpful content update rewards content written for people. On 30 November, OpenAI releases ChatGPT and a hundred million people learn to ask a machine for an answer.
For SEO · The question stops being where you rank and starts being whether you are in the answer.
2023
Chat comes to search
Bing adds a chat answer in February. Google previews its Search Generative Experience in May. Perplexity grows from a research project into a search product.
For SEO · Citations become the new position one, and nobody has a rank tracker for them yet.
2024
AI Overviews
Google rolls AI Overviews out in the US in May and in the UK in August: a generated answer above the results, with the sources it leaned on.
For SEO · Being cited and being clicked come apart. Measuring one does not tell you the other.
2025
AI Mode
Google launches AI Mode in the US, a full conversational tab inside Search. ChatGPT search is open to everyone.
For SEO · Answers, not lists. The source of the answer is the new battleground.
2026
Now: tracking the answer, not the ranking
The work that matters is knowing which questions a brand appears in, which sources the answers trust, and what moves them. That is what I spend my days building.
For SEO · Same two levers as 1998: relevance and authority. Different scoreboard.
02 · Time machine
Drag a results page through 28 years.
Same query, every year since 1998. Watch the ads arrive, the panels appear, and the results sink.
Results page time machine
1998
Ten results. No ads. Relevance plus links. That is the whole page.
19982026
The shop in the results, The Specialty Coffee Company, was mine. Watch it get pushed down the page as the years pass. Running it taught me a lot of what I know.
A mock results page for the query “best coffee beans”. Layouts are illustrative, the other results are placeholders, and the features and years are real.
Search
best coffee beans· results as you type
All✦ AI ModeImagesNewsMapsShopping
✦ AI Overview
The best coffee beans depend on brew method and roast level. Freshly roasted single-origin beans from Ethiopia and Colombia are widely recommended for pour-over, while darker blends suit espresso…
roasters.exampleguide.examplereviews.example
Adwww.beans-example.com
Fresh Roasted Coffee Beans · Free Delivery
Adwww.beans-example.com
Fresh Roasted Coffee Beans · Free Delivery
Arabica beans are generally considered the best for flavour, with Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Colombian Supremo among the most recommended origins for home brewing.
coffeeguide.example › best-beans
Top stories
People also ask
Which coffee beans are best for espresso?⌄
What is the best coffee bean in the world?⌄
Are expensive coffee beans worth it?⌄
www.thespecialtycoffeecompany.com › coffee-beans
The Specialty Coffee Company · Freshly Roasted Coffee Beans
www.example-1.co.uk › coffee › beans
Best Coffee Beans 2024: Tested and Ranked
www.example-2.co.uk › coffee › beans
Single Origin vs Blend: Which Beans?
www.example-3.co.uk › coffee › beans
Coffee Beans Buying Guide
www.example-4.co.uk › coffee › beans
Top Rated Beans for Espresso
www.example-5.co.uk › coffee › beans
Where to Buy Fresh Roasted Beans
www.example-6.co.uk › coffee › beans
Light, Medium or Dark Roast?
www.example-7.co.uk › coffee › beans
Fairtrade Coffee Beans Explained
www.example-8.co.uk › coffee › beans
Grind Size and Bean Freshness
www.example-9.co.uk › coffee › beans
Coffee Bean Storage Tips
03 · Quiz
Eight questions. No Googling.
Question 1 of 8Score 0
Archie, the first search engine, let you search what?
Pick one.
Dates are taken from the companies’ own announcements at the time. If you spot one that is wrong, tell me and I will fix it. The results pages are illustrations of each era’s layout, not screenshots, and show no real brand.