Dana Todd initially started out in the world of what was called at the time, “search engine positioning” in late 1995 as Vice President of Bien Logic (later SiteLab), a startup web development company. In her interview with Mark Knowles, Dana mentions that the search engine optimization (SEO) environment was much different than today. She explains that SEOs did not generally know each other and the industry was largely unorganized in its early phase. Back then the focus was on using creatively innovated “black hat” techniques such as cloaking and page-jacking. Websites were optimized for many different search engines. After the birth of Google, and the consolidation of search traffic onto three primary search engines, the industry changed into a more organized professional industry. Accordingly, Dana assisted with the development of the Search Engine Marketers Professional Organization (SEMPO). Today, she is on the SEMPO Board of Directors.
Dana and a group of partners bought Bien Logic and spun it off to become SiteLab. She remains an owner and is the founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Newsforce. Prior to her work at Bien Logic and SiteLab, Dana worked as a journalist, news editor and advertising professional. She holds a Bachelors degree in Advertising from University of Georgia.