Publisher & Owner
Radu Tyrsina
Media entrepreneur leading Search Engine Watch’s new independent chapter.
“Build a future worthy of the history.”LinkedIn ↗
About Search Engine Watch
Watching search change the world since 1996.
For thirty years, Search Engine Watch has helped practitioners understand how information gets found. Today we cover SEO, PPC and AI search with independent reporting, experience and no noise.
The search archive30 years
1996
2026
From web directories and ten blue links to AI answers and agentic discovery.
Search changes. We keep watch.
1996First published
30 yearsWatching search evolve
IndependentOwnership and editorial voice
LondonPublished for a global industry
Search decides what gets found. We make it legible.
We did not begin by covering an established industry. We began while it was taking shape.
Search Engine Watch began as a practical investigation into why some pages appeared in early search engines and others did not. That work became A Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines, and then Search Engine Watch in 1997.
The platforms have changed. The questions have not: what is visible, why, which changes matter, and what should practitioners do next?
What we cover today
SEO and technical search
PPC and performance marketing
AI search and answer engines
Analytics, content and discovery
How it started
It began with a complaint.
Before SEO had a name, nobody could say why one site came first and another never showed up at all.
- Late 1995
“Why can’t I find my site?”
A client grumbled that his site could not be found in WebCrawler and wanted to know why. At the time, most web designers assumed you submitted a site and every page would eventually be listed. Ranking was a mystery; some said it was all about meta tags.
- Three months
The Search Engine Study
Changes were made to a site and its performance tracked in the major search engines. The result: the engines did not all work the same way, and some might not index a page at all. The study came with a chart of each engine’s features.
- April 1996
A Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines
The study went online and was kept up to date, with a news summary, the Search Engine Report, sent to subscribers. Librarians, researchers and everyday searchers soon joined the webmasters reading it.
- June 1997
Search Engine Watch launches
The guide grew into Search Engine Watch, grounded in the technical from day one.
In the room.
Search Engine Strategies (SES) brought the search industry together from 1999. SEW Connect grew out of it: practitioners comparing notes in person.
The people behind the watch
Full masthead →A small team with a long brief.
Thirty years is not a tagline. It is an archive.
- 1996A Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines appears.
- 1997Relaunched as Search Engine Watch, before Google was founded.
- 1999Search Engine Strategies brings the industry together.
- 2001SearchDay begins daily coverage of a young industry.
- 2004Forums and a news blog turn SEW into a daily community.
- 2026A new independent chapter for SEO, PPC and AI search.
The standard is usefulness, not publishing volume.
Evidence before certainty
We separate what is known from what the evidence suggests, and say plainly what remains uncertain.
Experience before performance
We value people who have managed campaigns, built products, analysed data and lived with the outcome.
Practical value before volume
Every piece should explain a change, help make a decision or make the reader better at the work.
Clear commercial boundaries
Advertising funds independent publishing. It never buys a favourable editorial conclusion.
Corrections and accountability
Substantive errors are corrected promptly, with a clear record of what changed and why.
Built by generations of search practitioners.
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