by Wayne Smith
Tenured SEO factors are the ranking signals that have stood the test of time. These foundational elements continue to influence modern SEO — spanning traditional search, multi-channel visibility, and optimization across multiple search engines.
Historical SEO Techniques
Off-Page SEO – Ranking with Backlinks
No indexed website exists in isolation. Backlinks have long been one of the strongest ranking factors in search. Algorithmically, they function as votes of confidence — a form of crowdsourced endorsement that helps search engines assess authority and trust.
On-page SEO is fundamentally about establishing the relevance of your content. Without clearly demonstrating relevance to a specific topic or keyword, a page is unlikely to perform well in search results. While backlinks remain vital for ranking, their primary role is to amplify the authority of content that is already well-optimized for relevance.
Today On-page SEO has been extended beyong relevancy, (a subjective term), to include experiance and expertise as emergent factors messurable by inclusion of subjects and related entities know by people who have experiance.
Tenured SEO Factors
Keyword Proximity, Evergreen Search Factor
Conceptually keyword proximity as a factor for ranking documents was initially pioneered by Altavista, however, Altavista's implementation of search did not scale with the size of the internet. Hotbot or Inktomi's internet search did and proximity has been a forever algorithm factor in determining relevancy ever since.
Evolution of Search Algorithms
The history of SEO and the history of algorithms for online document retrieval systems are linked. The SEO point of view is a front-row seat regarding who pioneered or proved the algorithm in scale! Not who invented it.
The battle of search engines to be the internet's number one search engine has produced many search innovations and algorithms. The algorithms advancements can be layed out chronologically based on each search engine pioneered innovation.