The History and Evolution of Internet Advertising
Web ads have a history that dates back to the early 1990s when
Internet advertising was virtually non-existent and in its infancy.
Although Web ads on the Internet are something that is considered a
normal part of daily life on the Internet, it was not always that way.
It just seems that way since today’s generation knows no world without
Internet access and using the World Wide Web as a primary tool for
shopping and communications.
A Brief History of the Internet
Before the Internet evolved into the major communications medium that
it is today it actually dates back as far as 1957 when the USSR launched
the first earth satellite called Sputnik. As a result, the US formed an
organization to take the lead in technology in the military called ARPA
(Advanced Research Projects Agency) which formed the predecessor to the
Internet.
A few years later the RAND Corporation did a study on how to maintain
command over missiles and bombers and the idea of packet switching was
born. This process involved breaking down data into information packets
that could be transferred from one computer to another which marked the
birth of the computer network.
In 1969 a network was established linking four points of access which
included four universities that were networked together and in 1972 the
first email program was created. The following year the TCP/IP protocol
was established which allowed diverse computer networks in different
locations to communicate with one another and this marked the beginning
of Internet use in places other than the military and university system.
Evolution of Internet Advertising
By the early 1990s the Internet was primarily used for data transfer
and email and most businesses did not realize the potential it had for
marketing and advertising. There were only a few hundred websites, there
were no search engines, newsgroups were the early form of chat rooms,
and Internet connectivity was established through your telephone line in
the form of dial up.
In 1994 Yahoo was created by two Stanford University students and it was
generally a listing site for websites that people found interesting.
This was also the year that Pizza Hut recognized the potential of the
Internet as a marketing tool and first offered pizza ordering online.
Between 1995 and 1996 Netscape launched its Web browser which brought
the online world into prominence and marked the point where people began
to take notice of the Internet as more than a tool for communications.
At this point there were about one thousand websites online and Web ads
were beginning to be offered in the form of banner advertising. It was
also during this year that eBay was founded in Pierre Omidyar’s living
room in California.
It wasn’t until 1996 that two more students from Stanford University
launched Backrub which was the first search engine to rank sites based
on popularity. This search engine is the origin of Google and the
beginning of what it is today.
By 1998 PayPal was launched as a clearing house and Clickbank offered
one of the first easy ways for merchants to process credit cards and
e-checks online. During this same year the search engine Goto.com
offered the first Web ads in the form of sponsored links and paid search
advertising which was powered by Inktomi. The search engine was
eventually bought out by Yahoo.
Two years later in the year 2000 Yahoo partnered with Google to power
their organic search results and phased out Inktomi. This business move
marked the beginning of Google becoming the largest search engine and a
household name which completely surpassed Yahoo.
By 2003 Google had acquired Blogger.com which began the entire blogging
revolution and the industry exploded into what it is today. Along with
the establishment of blogging, Google launched AdSense which places
targeted ads on the websites of business owners who earn a commission
for each click.
A few years after the launch of blogging and AdSense the Internet grew
to over eight billion web pages and Web ads became a normal part of
surfing the Internet and earning extra income with your website.
Additionally social networking sites such as MySpace started to rise in
popularity.
In 2006 video sites began to pop up on the Internet when Google acquired
YouTube which is a video sharing network used for educational videos,
personal videos, and viral marketing. Social bookmarking was introduced
to Internet marketing and article marketing took hold as a useful tool
for driving traffic to your website.
By the year 2009 social media was in full force and the idea of branding
became an essential part of running a successful online business. During
this time Web 2.0 marketing emerged as the next generation method of
advertising and has quickly grown with the increased use of social media
tools for communicating and promoting an online business.
Web 2.0 is growing in popularity with online business owners and
Internet marketing strategists are already theorizing about the methods
that Web 3.0 marketing will bring to Web ads and Internet advertising.