About Jim Boykin... a Timeline

Jim Boykin... SEO since 1999... founder of We Build Pages and Internet Marketing Ninjas... retired in 2025 and back home in Upstate New York.

The short versionTimelineAwardsBefore the blogMore about me

The short version

I was born and raised in Upstate New York... studied marketing at Rider University in New Jersey... then spent a while traveling the country and working in national parks before I ever touched a website.

In 1999 I started We Build Pages as a one man show designing and marketing websites... I never became much of a designer, but the marketing side worked out... and that little one man show grew into Internet Marketing Ninjas, about 100 ninjas at its peak, in Clifton Park, New York.

Along the way I wrote this blog from 2005 to 2008, spoke at a lot of conferences in a lot of countries, owned WebmasterWorld, SEOChat, DevShed, Cre8asiteForums and Threadwatch for a stretch, cohosted the SEO Rockstars show on WebmasterRadio, and did the Jim & Ann Show with Ann Smarty.

In 2025 Internet Marketing Ninjas was acquired by and merged with Previsible... and I retired that November after 26 years. Now I'm back in the Clifton Park area for good, near friends and family... revisiting national parks... writing songs... and putting my old stuff back online here.

Timeline

Year by year, with a source link under each entry where I have one.

  • 1990sGrew up in Upstate New York... studied marketing at Rider University in New Jersey... then traveled the U.S. working in national parks.Source: Business & Leadership profile
  • 1999Started We Build Pages as a one man show... published webuildpages.com and got my first client call from Atlanta about two weeks later.Sources: SEO Book interview (2013), Search-Marketing.info interview (2003)
  • 2002Went to my first SEO conference, SES San Jose... met Danny Sullivan, Jill Whalen and Bruce Clay... and got my picture taken with Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Started going to SES / ClickZ events every year from here on.Photos on the Photos page
  • 2003First WebmasterWorld Pubcon (Boston 2003)... I've been to Pubcon just about every year since. First interview, with Search-Marketing.info.Interview
  • 2004Barry Schwartz interviewed me on Search Engine Roundtable about link building.Interview with Link Specialist Jim Boykin (2004)
  • 2005Started this blog, jimboykin.com... 455 posts through 2008. Became a regular Pubcon speaker. We Build Pages released the C Class backlink analyzer tool. Aaron Wall interviewed me for SEO Book. Nominated in Search Engine Journal's 2005 Search Blog Awards.The 2005-2008 blog | SEO Book interview | C Class tool
  • 2006Search Engine Journal named this blog the Best Link Building Blog of 2006. Spoke at SES in London, New York and San Jose... started speaking at SES events this year.SEJ 2006 awards | TopRank: Jim Boykin's Blog Is On Fire
  • 2007Best Link Building Blog again from SEJ, 2007. Listed in GSINC's Top 40 Most Influential People in Search. The Link Ninja post that got a response from Rand at SEOmoz. Spoke at SES New York on Linking Strategies with Greg Boser.SER liveblog of the session | Rand's reply
  • 2008The blog was nominated for a SEMMY. I stopped posting here in 2008 and moved my writing over to the We Build Pages blog. Wrote the Paid Links Aren't Worth It To Me post in November.That post | WBP posts 2008-2011
  • 2009Pubcon Vegas 2009... SEOmoz called my link building session one of their favorites. Got named one of the Business Review's 40 Under 40 around this time. Testimonials on my 2010 schedule post
  • 2010The world tour year... SES London, SES New York, SES San Francisco, SEO Oktoberfest in Munich, Performance Marketing Expo in Miami, SEMcon in the Philippines, and Pubcon Vegas. We Build Pages sponsored SES too.Conference Talks page
  • 2011Renamed We Build Pages to Internet Marketing Ninjas. Wrote the Google Panda series. Spoke at Optimization in Kharkov, Ukraine. Guest on SEO Rockstars in December with Chris Boggs.The name change post | SEO Rockstars
  • 2012The big year... bought the Developer Shed network from Ziff Davis in June (20 sites including SEOChat, DevShed and Scripts.com)... bought Cre8asiteForums from Kim Krause Berg in October... and bought WebmasterWorld from Brett Tabke, announced on stage at Pubcon Vegas. Kris Jones, Ann Smarty, Kim Krause Berg and Joe Hall joined the Ninjas. Platinum sponsor of Pubcon.I bought the Developer Shed Network | Cre8asite post | Communities page
  • 2013Bought SEOROI.com and the rights to Gab Goldenberg's Advanced SEO Book in January. Relaunched Threadwatch.org. Chris Boggs joined the Ninjas. Released the Google Backlink Checker tool for Penguin and disavow work. Got John Mueller to answer my disavow questions. SEO Book interviewed me again.Threadwatch post | John Mueller Q&A | Backlink Checker tool | SEO Book 2013
  • 2014Cohosted SEO Rockstars on WebmasterRadio.fm with Chris Boggs, May through December 2014. Spoke at ClickZ Live San Francisco and Pubcon Vegas. Gab Goldenberg joined the Ninjas.SEO Rockstars episodes | Top 5 speakers at ClickZ Live 2014
  • 2015Started the Jim & Ann Show with Ann Smarty in July. Made the Hacksaw Jim Duggan videos. Relaunched WebmasterWorld with a responsive design. Spoke at ClickZ Live New York.Jim & Ann Show page | Hacksaw videos
  • 2016The Internet Marketing Ninjas Club Band recorded For What It's Worth. Master level Penguin 4.0 session at Pubcon Vegas.Music page | Pubcon write up
  • 2017Sold WebmasterWorld, SEOChat and DevShed back to Brett Tabke in November, after five years as CEO of those communities. Spoke at Pubcon SFIMA and UnGagged London.SER: Brett Tabke Buys WebmasterWorld Back
  • 2018Released the Google Featured Snippet Optimization Tool (NinjaTools.com). Link building AMA with Loren Baker.The tool post | AMA video
  • 2019Main stage at Pubcon Vegas with Ann Smarty.Pubcon announcement
  • 2020Barry Schwartz came to the office to film a talk about two decades of link building. Detlef Johnson joined the Ninjas. Started Ninja Music Nights during lockdown.Search Engine Land video | Music page
  • 2021Textbroker's Digital Marketing League, and the SEO Insider interview with BluShark Digital.Textbroker DML | SEO Insider
  • 2022Brought back the Jim & Ann Show as a podcast with guests like Barry Schwartz, Rand Fishkin, Bill Hartzer, Bill Slawski, Duane Forrester and Ben Fisher.All 2022 episodes
  • 2023Shop Talk interview with Steve Wiideman on the evolution of SEO.Shop Talk
  • 2025Sold the Internet Marketing Ninjas assets to Previsible in May... announced the merger publicly on July 9, 2025... and retired in November after 26 years.My announcement | Previsible's post
  • 2026Brought jimboykin.com back online with the 2005 to 2008 posts, my We Build Pages and IMN posts, the old We Build Pages site, my videos, the SEO Rockstars episodes... and started writing again at /news/. Also started putting my songs on YouTube.Here I am! Sharpening my Pencils

Awards and lists

Sources for the older ones: All American Speakers bio and UnGagged speaker page.

Before the blog (2003 to 2005)

jimboykin.com was a personal site before it was an SEO blog... family pages, trips, holidays. These are Wayback Machine links, so some may be missing captures.

More about me on this site

Jim's Posts: New Posts 2026- | Internet Marketing Ninjas 2011-2025 | We Build Pages 2008-2011 | Blog 2005-2008 | We Build Pages
Jim's Videos: IMN Youtube | Jim's Youtube | Jim in Videos on Other Sites
Jim's Audio: SEO Rockstars Podcast | Jim & Ann Show
More Jim: About & Timeline | Conference Talks | Communities | Photos | Music
Jim Around the Web: Jim Boykin Mentions | X | LinkedIn | YouTube | Facebook