Matt Cutts is the Oracle of SEO and when he speaks, people definitely listen. That’s what’s make his recent mass blog posting (he refers to it as, “coughing up a hairball) so very interesting.
The blog postings cover a wide swath of topics ranging from Cutts’ fitness goals to some seriously geeky discussions on a USB missile launcher.
A few of these posts, however, provide some interesting insights into how Cutts operates.
Here are a few highlights?
What’s Up with All the Videos?
If you follow SEO news at all you’ve almost certainly seen one Cutts’ signature videos. In one of his blog posts he reveals that these fireside chats are his best effort at addressing as many curious SEOs at one time as he possibly can.
Email is a 1:1 communication, so I could answer 10 emails and help roughly 10 people. Or in the same amount of time, I could comment on a forum, start on a blog post, or plan out another video that could benefit a lot more people…
Is Google Really Evil?
In another posting, Cutts takes on Heute Online, a Swiss online publication that ran a story titled, “Google is Evil After All.” The whole story turns on the story of a site that cried, “foul,” after being de-indexed. Cutts claims that the site was misusing the link removal tool.
What’s interesting about this posting is the view it provides into Cutts’ world and what he really gets out of the many online critiques he encounters. As Cutts himself says:
Even when people say negative things, folks at Google do listen and look for ways to improve. Case in point: the newer url removal tool resolves a whole class of potential misunderstandings…
If for no other reason, the Cutts blog dump is worth a look because it humanizes that remote figure who has such a big impact on SEOs, affiliates, and pretty much anyone who uses the Web.
What do you think about Cutts’ “blog hairball,”? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.