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The second day of the conference started brightly, with a decent hotel breakfast and a cab ride with Dennis Mortensen from Index Tools, nice to meet you Dennis! Followed by a mad rush to the conference hall to make sure I got a seat for Matt Cutts’ keynote conversation, something I had been really looking forward to…
For those of you who are not aware; Matt Cutts is a leading software engineer at Google, he is Head of the Webspam team and writes a well known blog about Google and SEO. It was good to see him make the trip over from the States to meet the UK crowd and being such an open and interesting guy, I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say. The interview/conversation was conducted by Chris Sherman.
Here are some of the highlights…
The conversation started with Matt explaining how he ended up working for Google. He explained that he and his wife eloped to try and work for Google, he took classes in library and information science and after writing a letter, they employed him in 2000.
As he’s Head of the Spam team, Matt was asked where to draw the line with spam. He explained that “measuring how happy users are is important.” He went on to say that off topic spam, he used an example of typing in your name and getting porn, “isn’t in anybody’s interest.”
Matt was asked to clarify current algorithm updates at Google. He explained that in the old days there would be a monthly update, which was referred to as the Google Dance. In 2003 they started to make incremental changes, but now Google has “Everflux” where an index update happens everyday. The algorithm takes a lot longer to update, but there are updates taking place on a daily basis to either the index or algorithms.
When asked whether he could say anything about undetectable spam, Matt explained that there was once a guy who claimed that his “super duper” cloaking technique would never be detected. He found that his “super duper” cloaking had page names like “doorway-page-alta-vista” - Matt explained: “even my Mum could have detected that!”
Matt also said that he receives emails form people saying; “try our link buying program”. He said he replies by asking “can you show me some examples of your work?” They write back and supply him with a whole list of the websites which you can buy links from… Absolute classic!
Matt even said that Google receives email spam claiming “We can increase the visibility of Google.com within Google!”
Chris asked Matt if he could give one piece of advice to those who are new to SEO, something they can go home to try out… it probably won’t come as much of a surprise that he told them to all go and try out Google Webmaster Central - plug, plug!
Matt made the announcement that Google Webmaster Tools was coming out of Beta, a Valentines gift, he explained! He picked out Vanessa Fox in the audience and thanked her for all her great work. He asked those who have tried the service to raise their hands. He told those who hadn’t to go and try it out! - Quel surprise!
Chris asked Matt where he saw Google in the next 3-5 years? He answered: “personalisation and localisation”. He also plugged a few more Google services by telling the audience that they can store their data at Google. He claimed that a business could start up and run perfectly well by using all of Google’s free services within 5-10 days.
Chris thanked Matt for his time, Matt thanked Chris for the having him and the audience started to applause…
So, a fairly interesting keynote, glad I made it along. I found the information about index and algorithm changes fairly useful but I can’t say anything came as a big surprise. All the of Google plugging got a bit much towards the end - but I won’t be too hypocritical, as I use all of the tools which were mentioned and happen to be a fan of them all.
It was great to see a few top Google employees over in the UK for the three days. It proves how Google is now really embracing our industry, working with us not against us (black hats not included of course) and providing us all with great tools in order for us to do our ethical SEO more effectively.
Matt came across as a really nice guy, I have been reading his blog for many years and it was good to see him speaking in person ..I didn’t get a chance to meet him after the session as he was absolutely mobbed. Maybe next time…
Next up: Successful Site Architecture
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Hi Dennis - good to hear from you.
Ah yes, the wonders of Brighton on the property shows. It seems that everyone wants to move here at the moment, mainly due to the coverage it gets on these types of shows but obviously because it’s so picturesque down here 
I have now amended the above link to point to your blog. Glad you have managed to find this blog of mine in the process, I will now reply to the Analytics comment you have made.
Dan
Comment by househunter 03.12.07 @ 5:14 pmLeave a comment
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Hi There,
Nice to meet you too! – actually told my wife that I meet this “dude” from Brighton, as BBC Prime and CNN are the only two English speaking channels we have here in Budapest
and any home improvement, real estate etc. show just HAVE to add Brighton to the list if city’s they do.
I can see you linked to a speaking engagement page – from an appearance I did in Reykjavik. I actually set up a BLOG recently (whuhuu another one) – that might represent me better than somebody’s else interpretation. The subject is not surprisingly:
Web Analytics & Affiliate Marketing
I can see that you have a couple of comments about Analytics, I think I will jump to one of them and add some REAL input
Cheers..
Dennis R. Mortensen, COO at IndexTools
Comment by Dennis R. Mortensen 03.10.07 @ 8:01 pmMy Analytics Blog