Once I had developed my strategy for researching, analyzing, compiling, and reporting information about search engine optimization for my final exam paper, I started getting to work. The first thing I decided to work on was finding resources about internet promotion that provided some background and history about search engine optimization, including information about when web site optimization became a commonly used method of internet promotion.

To find information about the history of search engine optimization, I did various searches at the major search engines and discovered that search engine optimization has been used as a form of internet promotion by online businesses since 1994 and that search engine optimization companies have been around for more than twelve years now.

Furthermore, I discovered that most online businesses would not think of hiring a search engine optimization firm for their internet promotion needs, because they simply did not think that many people were using the internet still. Therefore, not too much importance was placed on search engine ranking and the work of SEO companies until about 1997, when there was a big boom in the online business world.

During the internet boom of the 90's, many online business started being very concerned about their search engine ranking and wanted to get more traffic to their websites with the use of search engine optimization firms.