Bruce Clay

Bruce Clay was an American digital marketing strategist and entrepreneur who is credited with developing and popularising the concept and practice of search engine optimisation, creating the methodological frameworks and educational resources that defined SEO as a discipline from its early days in the mid-1990s through decades of evolution as search engines and the practices of digital marketing changed around it, earning him the title Father of SEO within the industry he had helped to create. He died on 25 June 2026 at the age of 78.