Member Avatar for bijutoha

Actually I heard about Bruce Clay, Gareth James aka and Leslie Rohde.

Edited by happygeek because: moved
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Short answer at a glance: there is no single, unambiguous "father of SEO." The discipline grew out of three things happening at once — early search systems and directories, thousands of webmasters experimenting with markup and linking, and the companies whose ranking rules shaped what optimization meant. Calling any one person "the father" skips that nuance.

Why answers here vary: people mean different things by "father." Do you mean the person who first used the label? the earliest practitioners who tweaked sites to rank? the platform that defined the rules? or the popularizers and educators who turned tactics into a profession? Contributors in this thread reflect those angles — and point to named pioneers, and emphasize platforms and early paid-search incentives, and others call out influential commentators. Each view is reasonable once you state your definition.

If you need one tidy line to use aloud, pick the line that matches your intent:

  • Quick, accurate reply: "There isn't one — SEO evolved from many pioneers and platforms."
  • If pressed to name someone as the origin of the label: say "the person commonly credited with coining the term" and follow with that name and a one-sentence qualifier.
  • If you mean who shaped modern SEO practice: say "the major search engines and the early engineers who defined ranking" and note that practitioners adapted to those rules.

Practical tip: whenever you hand the "father" title to a person, add one brief qualifier (term, practice, platform, or popularizer). That keeps the statement punchy yet honest, and avoids the endless rearguard arguments this thread demonstrates.

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Member Avatar for happygeek

http://goo.gl/CUAUD2

But, to be honest, it looks like you have already done a Google search and just pasted the names from it. If you already know about the three principle players with a claim to the title, why ask here?

Member Avatar for bijutoha

In my query I saw them, Yes. But my view is.. it should be one from who is the legend or first on SEO.I need a clean answer at a glance that I have to say "He is the father of SEO".

Edited by bijutoha
Member Avatar for happygeek

In that case the correct answer is Google is the father of SEO.

Member Avatar for ashleydaniel

Bruce Clay is the Father of SEO, as he only coined the term.

Member Avatar for PixelatedKarma

I would tend to agree because SEO as we know it very much revolves around Google itself. However on the other hand saying that Google is the father of SEO is also like saying the catholic church is the father of organized religion. Just because they currently hold the most power and generally dictate the drive for SEO does this really quantify Google as being the ruling power.

If we look back I'm sure we can see the founding fathers of SEO through a relatively easy Google search and by comparing the facts as presented (as mentioned previously), and by founding fathers I mean the people responsible for originally tinkering with their websites to try and increase their SERPs.

But SEO 15 years ago isn't really close to what SEO is today; nor will it be the same in another 15 years (especially if the internet of things takes foothold). Can you really imagine doing onpage optimizing for your website for a household bathroom mirror? I imagine that would be quite similar to optimizing a website for mobile/tablet search nowadays with vastly different criteria. Are we destined to now have our SEO dictated by Google? Or will Baidu eventually infringe enough on Google's space to make Baidu's algorithims the new SEO testiment? After all - even Rome fell once upon a time. Maybe with iphone6 adopting DuckduckGo - maybe we'll see a different shift in direction. After all users are becoming increasingly more aware of the requirements of privacy and a search engine like duckduckgo seems to be promising that moreso then Google. And maybe none of this will come to fruition; instead we will see people begin diversifying their web presence so that Google is used for local products and services while we go to duckduckgo for questions and answers and baidu for online shopping? Or maybe Google will wisen up to their competitors and begin making changes to stay in power for another decade or two.

Anyway that you look at it only time will tell what will happen in the future but to say for certainty that we should only be looking at the requirements of one company's/one individual's best practices would be a very narrow and short term success SEO success plan; especially when the internet is always changing.

Member Avatar for Dani

I say GoTo.com ... They were the first ones to do pay-per-click and the whole concept of paying to increase your rank in search engines.

Member Avatar for danielpeterson

Bruce Clay-based created the phrase 'SEO', but Gareth Wayne aka 'SEO Doctor' is the dad. Bruce Clay-based and the god dad is Barbara Rohde.

Member Avatar for Dani

I change my answer. After spending over an hour a couple of weeks ago hanging out with Bruce investigating DaniWeb's traffic decrease, he made some suggestions that caused a near-instant improvement.

Member Avatar for davidkilimanja

the father of seo has to be danny sullivan the founder of moz/search engine land. other contendors are matt cuttis for his many informative videos and articles on the topic as an insider

Member Avatar for deepam301192

Parry Prabhu, The father of Seo. A man who discovered query optimization methods of google, bing, and yandex, etc.

Member Avatar for Dani

SEO existed long before those search engines did. I was doing SEO back in 1996 on GoTo.com, Ask Jeeves, Etc. Long before Google was born.

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