My final interview at SMX East was with Detlef Johnson, an individual who was part of a small group of pioneers who helped form the SEO space and SEO profession. We discussed some of that super early history, there nothing like looking back at the past.
In the early days, he helped Danny Sullivan run the more technical developer sessions at Search Engine Strategies and now he is back at SMX to do a similar job. In fact, he was at the first SES event in 1999 in San Francisco. The first several years, he said, was just Danny and himself moderating. I-Search Digest (SearchReturn) was one of the first ever mailing lists in the space teaching SEO to those interested. Now, he is an Editor at Large at Search Engine Land, focused on SEO for Developers at the publication and SMX, the conference.
Talking about history; we talked about JavaScript and how JavaScript was around back in the 1990s. But it was super early, there was no CSS, there was just basic HTML and tables. He explained why JavaScript has made a second coming and why that is important for SEOs. Technical SEO back in the early days SEO was about making your CMS search engine friendly, now the JavaScript frameworks are like that today.
We then talked about his new initiatives at SMX and how he is running the SEO developers track. How he is trying to bring back a more technical and developer focus area to SMX.
He does do SEO consulting today, you can learn more about Detlef Johnson at searchreturn.com or on Search Engine Land or follow him on Twitter at @deckarts.
You can subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here so you don't miss the next vlog where I interviews. I do have a nice lineup of interviews scheduled with SEOs and SEMS, many of which you don't want to miss - and I promise to continue to make these vlogs better over time. If you want to be interviewed, please fill out this form with your details.
Forum discussion at YouTube.
