The Most Fascinating Compuserve SEO

Search Engine Optimization came about as soon as AOL and Compuserve offered search methods to find websites on the internet.

Digital Equipment Corporation developed a search system called Alta-Vista and Yahoo began to gain traction as a website portal. Originally, SEO was a method whereby website designers would influence the SERPS (search engine results page) by reverse engineering the top pages in the SERPS for a given search term.

Theories would be advanced and tested as to the elements of website design that yield high search engine rankings, and factors would be measured and large companies with marketing budgets learned to scientifically measure the promotion of a website for a given word or phrase. 

In the early days, as more and more independent dial-up and then broad band providers began to supplement the AOL and Compuserve market, the prevalence of truly naked portals like Lycos and Yahoo grew.

Further growth of search engines like Infoseek, Go, and Alta Vista sparked a new need to look for alternative means of ranking their index of pages. Exotic engines like Direct hit would measure how long you stayed on the page you clicked and how long before you came back if at all. Google analytics today attempts to provide statistics as to the average time on the site.

Search Engine Optimization today can be completely ignored, as some players for certain keywords can skip the lengthy time to rank a website by using alternate means such as Facebook pages and Facebook advertising. Groupon and other coupon sites will market products and services relentlessly for the right price.

But still, the ultimate measure of importance for established keywords requires that we consider a level of SEO to earn our entitled position in search engines. While not number one always, a search for the term ‘Hammer’ quickly leads us the the Estwing brand, an indestructible and well regarded brand of hammer for construction and general household use known by every American ever remotely interested in tools.

Similarly, a search for ‘soft drinks’ gets us Coca-Cola® somewhere on the first page of search results, every time. But, how did you send an email to Coca-Cola® back in the day?

CompuServe started with email addresses that were all digits, such as 1234567890 or 09876543. Some early CompuServe email addresses were only 7 characters long. But as CompuServe grew, account numbers were chosen to be 8 digits long, and in case you paid for multiple email addresses, one or two more digits would be added for each email address assigned to your account. CompuServe thought they were covered with at least tens of millions of available account numbers.

CompuServe started using alphanumeric email addresses in the early 1990s, and they eventually phased out all-digit addresses altogether. Some famous people had old CompuServe email accounts that were all digits.

One famous person who is known to have had an old CompuServe email account is Bill Gates. His account was `70707070`. Gates was a member of CompuServe from the early days of the service, and he used his account to stay connected with other computer users and to access information about the internet.

Another famous person who is known to have had an old CompuServe email account is Steve Jobs. His account was `12345678`. Jobs was also a member of CompuServe from the early days of the service, and he used his account to stay connected with other computer users and to access information about the internet.