SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

March 4, 2008

7 Deadly SEO Questions for Google's Matt Cutts

Wired? Or Weird? The Matt Cutts Interview on Epicenter in The Wired Blog Network.

The Question is no longer: "Is Google God?"

Wired knows the answer: Matt Cutts is. A god with a little g. Or at least "like" a god. Not just any god. An Internet god.

"Among search geeks and online marketers, Matt Cutts is like an internet god," wrote Betsy Schiffman in her blog post.

Last week when soliciting reader questions, Betsy called Matt one of the most "feared, loathed and revered men on the internet." He was "Google's search stud."

Perhaps it was inevitable that Matt Cutts would be deified. We just thought Wired might have made him a saint first. (cat god = inside joke for Cuttlets)

Nothing against Wired. I love Wired. So much I paid full retail price (less my Barnes & Noble discount) for the print magazine just to read Chris Anderson's "Free-conomics" before it was available free online.

Before readers reach the Q&A they have to hear the porn cookie guy story. Again.

Wired or Tired? You decide.

USA Today reviewed "The Google Story" by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed back in November of 2005:

"Take, for instance, the developer of Google's SafeSearch filter, Matt Cutts, also know as 'porn cookie guy': "Cutts got his moniker by giving out his wife's tempting homemade cookies to Googlers who help him find unwanted porn."

Then there's Porn Flakes, the Google cereal story (via SEL?). Thanks but we'll have our breakfast of champions with attribution, Betsy.

Cereality! Matt got his own cereal box on the Google campus. No mention of Raisin Brin, LarryO's or Porn Flakes?

Danny posted today about Rand's Feb 29 video interview with Matt.

Last week I linked to Eric Enge's phenomenally popular, full text Q&A interview with Matt Cutts.

Today I'll link to Aaron Wall's #1 ranked (in Google for "matt cutts interview") done in 2005.

All Matt Cutts All The Time: our new Search Engine Watch mantra.

So in the interest of fair use, here are the 7 Deadly Questions Wired asked Matt:

1. Does SEO (search-engine optimization) work? 2. Where do you see search in two to five years? 3. What about social search? 4. Will you ever roll out for-fee webmaster tools? 5. On video search, is there a bias toward YouTube videos? 6. If you were to start a web-based business tomorrow, what key things would you do? 7. What's going on with Google bombs -- are you still seeing them?

Continue reading for three Matt Cutts Wired Quotes of the Day:

Wired Magazine sat down with Matt Cutts to ask him reader-submitted questions about the world of search. Cutts answered questions about whether or not SEO really works, the future of search, if Google curries favor to YouTube in their search results and his opininon on social search, among other things.

Some notable quotes from the Q&A Interview include:

On whether SEO works: Think of it this way: When you put a resume forward, you want it to be as clean as possible. If the resume is sloppy, you're not going to get interviewed for the job. SEO is sort of like tweaking your resume

On the future of Search: Personalization is also really interesting to me. So if you search for 'diamond,' [the search engine will know] if you're looking for jewelry or baseball.

On possible Google bias towards YouTube: I've asked around about this issue and the people I've spoken with strongly deny it. We are actively trying to promote diversity and we take that as a high-order goal.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:19 PM | Permalink

July 9, 2007

Google's VP Search Quality, Udi Manber, Interviewed

Latest in my interview series is a discussion I had with Udi Manber, Google's VP of Search Quality. For me, it was a great opportunity to speak with Udi, and learn more about some of the thinking about key parts of Google's strategy. I first saw Udi speak at the announcement of the Universal Search initiative, at the event that Google referred to as Searchology.

In fact, he was the one who pointed out during Searchology that 20 to 25% of the search queries Google receives every day are being ssen by Google for the first time. Perhaps this is a tribute to the complexity of language, and the relatively random process by which people approach the formulation of their search queries.

One of the interesting discussions in the interview was about the future role of links in the Google search algorithm, in light of all the changes of late, including the move towards personalization. I asked him if this would diminish the important of links over time. Udi reinforced that links will continue to play a large role in the Google algorithm for the forseeable future. Not a big surprise perhaps, but it was interesting to confirm it.

Posted by at 10:00 AM | Permalink

October 4, 2006

How Google's Q&A One Box Results Work

The Google Operating Systems blog has slides from Peter Norvig's presentation at UC Berkeley on how the Google One Box Q&A results work. He says that "Google doesn't use predefined patterns, they find the patterns from examples, as this approach is more scalable." The slides show the algorithms that detect these patterns from examples. Is it perfect? No. Ben at the Search Engine Roundtable discovered Google OneBox Q&A Adult Spam last month, in which Matt Cutts confirmed to be an issue with the OneBox extractor code.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:58 AM | Permalink

July 7, 2006

Google's Q&A Database Different From Web Search Database

This morning I posted at SER that Google was displaying results for a particular site in the Q&A section of the Google SERPs but at the same time does not have any pages of that site listed in the Google web search index.

The details of this were posted in comments at Matt Cutts' blog. The site comes up for a search on % of African American in Los Angeles but does not come up for a site command search.

This may prove that Google uses a different index for the Q&A feature and the web search results.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:23 AM | Permalink

April 7, 2005

Google Launches Q&A Service, Answers Directly on Results Pages

I've said for quite some time that search engines will slowly but surely become "answer engines" for "ready reference" or factual types of questions.

Today, Google joins other search providers by offering answers (they're calling it Google Q&A) on results pages. I've been wondering the GooglePlex would begin offer this type of service.

Answers, if available, are placed in a OneBox at the top of the results list. Make sure to not confuse this with the Google Answers service that allows you to interact with human researchers.

Google is mining open web content including material from the Wikipedia for answers versus using material from reference tool like MSN Search does with Encarta.

Ask Jeeves, who has been offering Smart Answers for two years, also mines answers from sources like the Internet Movie Database and WHO2.com Google's "define" feature (a Google Labs graduate) culls definitions, and acronyms from the open web. Here's an example.

How does Google's new service compare to what others offer. To early to say from a few sample queries but from what you'll see linked below, I see it on par with what others offer. Yes, I know it's a beta so we'll be watching closely. Here are a few (very few) examples to give you some idea of coverage. Yes, once again I know it's a beta. (:-: An * means that MSN provided a direct answer for this query. An ** means that Ask Jeeves offers a SmartSearch box for this query.

+ Capital of France *,**

+ Current President of Spain?, * Note: No Google OneBox answer. However, removing the word current from the query does provide a Google result.

+ World Series Winner 1987?, * No Google OneBox answer

+ Where is Mountain View? *, ** No mention of the California city that's home to the GooglePlex )-:

+ Where is Timbuktu, *? No Google OneBox

+ When is Labor Day 2005?, ** No Google OneBox.

+ Who is Lebron James?, *

+ What is RSS?, **

+ Where was Bill Clinton born? Note: Result from Who2.com, a source that Ask Jeeves also uses.

+ Zip Code for Evanston, Illinois, ** No Google OneBox answer

+ Who Shot Abraham Lincoln?, *

+ Author of To Kill a Mockingbird, *

Answer engines are just on the radar screens of large web search providers. Services like BrainBoost offers answers mined from the open web. We've also read about search technology from Kozoru that will soon play in this space. "Know it All" is being developed at the University of Washington.

Yahoo and AOL offer shortcuts that work by entering a "trigger" word along with a search term into the search box. In some cases an answer might be listed on the results page and in other cases a link to a specialized database is provided. Here's an example of Yahoo offering info from the Columbia Encyclopedia about the subject of television. Btw, see this post (from earlier today) about material from Wikipedia coming to Yahoo results pages very soon.

These blog posts from November and February have more about what others offer and a bit of history about placing answers directly onto results pages.

No answers just questions to ponder... Will publishers spring up who just offer verified and dynamic databases of facts ready for mining?

Actually, they already do. Facts.com is one example. They offer a web-based version of the legendary Facts on File service which is available free online from many public and university libraries. I wonder if web search providers or even search verticals might partner with this legendary "fact" provider and mine these database for factual answers. The same thing with the material like xrefer provides. This would not only provide answers but also allow content from highly respected reference publishers to find more users.

Finally, one thing is for sure, ready reference answer services will also be big winners as mobile web search continues to grow. In fact, Google Q&A is now a part of the Google Mobile service. That's cool! Recently, Answers.com, launched a mobile version of their answer oriented search vertical.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:52 PM | Permalink

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