October 4, 2008 by Matt Thomas
S-E-O. Three initials that pass the lips of any self respecting internet professional several times a day. They stand for ‘Search Engine Optimisation,’ which represents the key to placing your site near the top of Google’s (or any other search engine’s), ranking. The practice is the lifeblood of the internet industry, and therefore big business.
However, nobody has ever really thought about the name ‘SEO’. Where did it come from? Who coined it?
Those questions are currently being asked, by at least some people in the industry, after a man named Jason Gambert attempted to trademark the term. In an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office, Gambert asserts that he first used the term in a 2007 email.
If you’re thinking that 2007 seems a little recent for the claim to be true, you might well be right. Industry insiders have been falling over themselves to refute Gambert’s claim, one of the best placed being a man named Bob Heyman who, along with his business partner Leland Harden, actually used the term in the 1998 book, Net Results, nearly a decade before Gambert claims to have ‘invented’ the term.
A fact which doesn’t bode well for Mr. Gambert’s trademark hopes.
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