With Google recently turning 18 years old, Darren Fullerton, head of SEO, Forward3D, reflects on the journey the advertising giant has been on and believes, despite the controversy it brings to the digital advertising industry, a world with Google is far better than a world without it.

An 18th birthday isn’t a proper celebration without a party. It used to be a coming of age, the day you got the keys to the door. Today, you’re more likely to hire a sweet venue, get friends round, and show off your new tech.

It’s no different if the 18th happens to be for a USD$83bn (£68bn) multinational.

Last month, Google celebrated their 18th birthday, showing off their latest phone (the Pixel, which launched 20 October), their first consumer AI (Home), and upgrades for their favourite VR tech (a new headset).

The world’s favourite search engine has come a long way since 1998, when their aim was no loftier than to find you a bus timetable and ‘do no evil’.

The mission remains, but that simple search engine has become an altogether different beast.

By 2000, the marketing community realised the opportunities of working with Google. We were quick to act. It was a race to cram every spare inch of the web with keywords that pushed clients to the top of search. Particularly since they had also introduced AdWords and that meant paying for visibility.

Why meaningless keyword drivel should be marketing catnip was a mystery to central marketing. According to them, agencies versed in the dark arts of Google were a law unto themselves.

But, as Google is wont to do, they learnt that gaming the keyword system was neither good for their business model nor was it covering brands in glory.

Darren Fullerton, Head of SEO, Forward3D

In 2011, with the release of Panda, they insisted that pages they ranked be at least readable. Arguably, Google were the forefathers of today’s booming content industry. Keywords are still important, but integrating them into beautiful copy is the new dark art.

Google weren't done pushing us all towards a better customer content experience. As their resources grew, they started to expand into areas where customers muddled along because, frankly, there wasn’t a better alternative.

Increasing, data resources empowered the consumer and, again, they forced everyone to up their game. Price comparison sites now exist for everything from car parts to car insurance. Traditional providers have to adapt or die.

And so to the latest seismic shift in Google’s ever-expanding universe – virtual becomes physical. In 2010, they launched mobile phones, in 2011 laptops, and in 2014, driverless cars. Today, Google docs with cloud storage is the norm, used by everyone from the local parent teacher association to the chiefs at National Geographic and Virgin.

There are some concerns. Are we charging headlong into a world owned and controlled by Google as they gather our data and lock in our loyalty?

I don’t believe their ultimate aim is to rob us of our autonomy. There is much we can do today, better and faster, that would have been impossible 10, let alone 20, years ago. We may be nervous of sharing our data, but it’s that data that has made this possible.

What will Google’s next advances be? Who can say. There are already inroads into artificial intelligence and machine learning with Home. Driverless cars may solve congestion, but humans will have to come to a sensible compromise when it comes to letting the computers take control. They are each fallible.

As hard as it was to imagine a world with Google 18 years ago, it is just as hard to imagine what a world with Google will look like in the next 18. What is certain is that, today, it is impossible to imagine a world without Google at all.