There's an awful lot of SEO people on Twitter that claim to be connected to Google, and the article he links on the Google domain as a reference doesn't say anything on the topic that I can find. I'm reluctant to call that an official source.
Journalist here. Danny Sullivan works for Google, but spent nearly 20 years working outside of Google as a fellow journalist in the SEO space before he was hired by the company.
1st paragraph is correct , 2nd not quite - Matt Cutts was a distinguished engineer (looking after web spam at Google) who took on the role of the search spokesperson - it’s that role Danny took over as “search liaison”
No. But it's also complicated, as Matt did thinks beyond web spam. Matt worked within the search quality team, and he communicated a lot from search quality to the outside world about how Search works. After Matt left, someone else took over web spam. Meanwhile, I'd retired from journalism writing about search. Google approached me about starting what became a new role of "public liaison of search," which I've done for about six years now. I work within the search quality team, just as Matt did, and that type of two-way communication role he had, I do. In addition, we have an amazing Search Relations team that also works within search quality, and they focus specifically on providing guidance to site owners and creators (my remit is a bit broader than that, so I deal with more than just creator issues).
I'm the source. I officially work for Google. The account is verified by X. It's followed by the official Google account. It links to my personal account; my personal account links back to it. I'm quoted in the Gizmodo story that links to the tweet. I'm real! Though now perhaps I doubt my own existence....
He claims to work for Google on X, LinkedIn, and his own website. I am inclined to believe him because I think he would have received a cease and desist by now otherwise.
He claims to work for google as search "liason". He's a PR guy. His job is to make people think that google's search system is designed to improve the internet, instead of it being designed to improve google's accounting.
I actually work for our search quality team, and my job is to foster two-way communication between the search quality team and those outside Google. When issues come up outside Google, I try to explain what's happened to the best I can. I bring feedback into the search quality team and Google Search generally to help foster potential improvements we can make.
Yes. All this is saying that you do not write any code for the search algorithms. Do you know how to code? Do you have access to those repos internally? Do you read them regularly? Or are you only aware of what people tell you in meetings about it.
Your job is not to disseminate accurate information about how the algorithm works but rather to disseminate information that google has decided it wants people to know. Those are two extremely different things in this context.
I work on these kind of vague "algorithm" style products in my job, and I know that unless you are knee deep in it day to day, you have zero understanding of what it ACTUALLY does, what it ACTUALLY rewards, what it ACTUALLY punishes, which can be very different from what you were hoping it would reward and punish when you build and train it. Machine learning still does not have the kind of explanatory power to do any better than that.
No. I don't code. I'm not an engineer. That doesn't mean I can't communicate how Google Search works. And our systems do not calculate how much "old" content is on a site to determine if it is "fresh" enough to rank better. The engineers I work with reading about all this today find it strange anyone thinks this.
Probably not; anyone can claim to work for these companies with no repercussions, because is it a crime? Maybe if they're pricks that lower these companies' public opinion (libel), but even that requires a civil suit.
But lying on the internet isn't a crime. I work for Google on quantum AI solutions in adtech btw.
He’s been lying a long time, considering that he’s kept the lie up that he’s an expert on SEO for nearly 30 years at this point, and I’ve been following his work most of that time.
