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"I know I am not in London now, but Liana \u201CLi\u201D Evans is and she has sent over the keynote session from SES London for me to post.    Keynote Speech with Matt Cutts of Google\nChris welcomes everyone, introduces MattChris:  Matt you went to school on the east coast, how did you make it to the west coast and make it to googleMatt: My wife and I eloped to come to Google, he took classes in library and information sciences.  Wrote to Google and asked how much do you have to pay.  They finally wrote back and started negotiated for a position and he started at Google in 2000.Chris: You\u2019re head of the web spam team, take us through a typical dayMatt:  I\u2019m different, he really spends time in email and spotting trends.  Look at bad search reports, and assess, what\u2019s the worse things, how can we prioritize.  What can we do to help the users.  \nChris:  Spam is in the eye of the beholder.  They think it\u2019s ok content, but it is spam.  Where do you draw the lineMatt:  That can be tough.  Litmus test \u2013 what was the intent and how was it done.  Spammy techniques \u2013 sneaky java scripts, techniques that are use help to determine the intent.  Measuring how happy users are is important.  Spam can be defined as noise, noise from your signal.  Off topic spam \u2013 you type in your name and get porn.  That isn\u2019t in anybody\u2019s interest.Cookie cutter sites that don\u2019t add any value \u2013 50 sites that there\u2019s now diversity.  No value add for the customer.  There are definitely shades \u2013 some are more serious and some lessChris:  You spend a lot of time on your blog .  Can you clarify what\u2019s going on with algorithm updates and index updates.Matt:  When I first started, it took a long time because it didn\u2019t have checkpoint.  In mid 2000 they went to a monthly update for 3-4 years, and people got a lot of value.  With a monthly update, you get a lot of new things, and gets combined together, therefore things get ranked differently every month.Then in 2003 we started incremental updates.  This made things better.Back when it was back Now Google has Everflux, index update happens ever day. Then Google data pushes, can include daily but can also include 3-4 month information.Search for \u201CBarry Schwartz\u201D  use to show sitelinks but that changed last Friday.  That\u2019s a data push.Then there\u2019s algorithm updates \u2013 and those take longer to updateThere\u2019s always changes going on \u2013 majority happen everyday, then every few weeks data pushes happen, algo updates \u2013 those are large update and happen less frequentlyChris:  You spend a lot of time debunking on your blog, What are some of your favorite things you\u2019ve debunked?Matt:  Email from 9/11/2000, someone was showing up on a forum.  \u201Cjust got off the phone with Google and they said, advertising will help your rankings\u201D \u2013 which was totally falseTool bar \u2013 experiment anyone can run.  Try things, to see how they are weighted, toolbar helped debunked a lot Chris:  Undetectable Spam is a recent thing you\u2019ve debunked\u2013 what other stories do you have that are pretty interesting.Matt: There was this guy who claimed there no way his cloaking could be detected because he used \u201Csuper duper\u201D cloaking.  His \u201Csuper duper\u201D cloaking had pages name \u201CDoorway-Page-Alta-Vista\u201D, my mom could detect that.  Then sometimes people will email you \u2013 \u201Clink to my site, sell links on my site\u201D or \u201Ctry out our link buying program\u201D.  I  follow up with these emails and ask  \u201Cdo you have any examples\u201D, \u201Ccan you show me some of your work?\u201D  They write back and supply me with a whole list of their websites you can buy links from,Anything that someone claims in undetectable usually isn\u2019t..  Then even Google itself gets email span claiming \u201CWe can increase the visibility of Google.com\u201DChris:  You\u2019re involved with the Adversarial Information Retrieval group, can you talk about it?  It helps to Fight Spam, can you give us some of your insight?Matt:  AIR Web usually happens with academic conferences, example of hopping on SIG IR, \nI\u2019ve been involved with AIR Web for about 3-4 years.  It essentially reviews papers.  First were about taxonomy, now more quantitative.  This year AIR Web is doing a Test Set.  Now there\u2019s an external test set that testers can use.  The more the world knows about spam the better for the usersChris:  There is a trend we are seeing where the search engines are working together, sort of a Co-Opp-Itition?Matt:  Search Engines in general benefit from standards like robot.txt.  That is just incredibly helpful.  Although they compete very hard to have the best relevance.  But at the same time, a regular webmaster shouldn\u2019t have to deal with a lot of different things from everyone.  It took about 10 years from robots to nofollow and then sitemaps followed very soon after and this is good fro a lot of peopleChris:  Talk about what Google is doing, as we are seeing a trend toward s personalized search.  To me it\u2019s a great thing, gives me better results.  But this is a huge threat to SEO.  How do you go about optimizing a web page to personalization?Matt: The beatuy of SEO is that is always changing and  those people who can adapt and be ready for the changes, won\u2019t have a problem with personalization.  Black hat becomes a lot more difficult.  Trying to find white hat SEO options such as Linkbaiting becomes more popular.  Personalization also means that there will no longer be one monolithic set of results in Google.Lets go back to 2000, people were happy for 1 month (30 day updates).  The difference with personalization \u2013 everyone can rank in some niche.  Before you win big  or you loose big.  Now you can target specific niches.  Trying to show up for your trophy phrase might now work as well \u2013 going after the long tail will be better with personalization.  You can\u2019t rank that (trophy keyword) for everyone anymore.Searching for football in the UK as opposed to USA \u2013 you get soccer in the UK, and then NFLl in USA, as you should.  Different languages will also affect personalization \u2013 big win for users.  Figuring out the niches will be very importantChris:  Sounds like niches are more like local, and mobile are becoming big?Matt:  Danny [Sullivan] has long been preaching \u201Cdon\u2019t just go after just the search engines\u201D.  Now searchers are getting one boxes.  Showing up in Google Local will be important.  Too many people don\u2019t look at their own site in a mobile \u2013 making small changes will make you ready for the next innovationChris:  Google has to work in framework of different laws within different countries such as China.  Google sensors results in China, but there\u2019s a link right to google.com on that page.  How do you balance the rights, and giving the unfiltered information, but abide by the country\u2019s lawMatt: take me w/ a grain of salt, as this is not my area of expertise.In 2002 Google received a DMCA complaint  from Scientology, about a anti-Scientology site.  Because of this we now have the a process of counter notification.  Next step \u2013 if the site is outside of the US, Google now include disclosures, with the DCMA information \u2013 so people can still get context.It is tough, a lot of different laws, and Google does have to respect the law of the lands, but have to balance that with wanting to give users as much information that Google can.Chris:  Googlers in China very passionate about search.  I\u2019ve asked them what the biggest problem \u2013 organized crime \u2013 spamming is their biggest concerned, not censorship.Matt:  There\u2019s a big focus on Chinese spam this year.  Until you have a good service, that\u2019s the focus.  Search quality in every language is very important to all Googlers.Chris:  Daniel Branch claims you once worked at the CIA and that its part of what you do now, that you have a top secret clearance and that Google is in bed with the CIA.  Can you comment to that?Matt:  When I was in college, I did a co-op tour with the CIA, where I worked for them for a semester and then went to classes for another.  Part of that required getting a security clearance, however, that has lapsed now and it\u2019s not active.I really enjoy working at Google.  There\u2019s no need to worry about any black helicopters.When the Department of Defense subpoenad Google, (one of over 30 companies)  Google was the only one declined and I helped with that.  Google, we viewed it as a violating our users\u2019 privacy, the judge agreed..Chris:  So you\u2019re not a spook?\nMatt:  Nope, not a spook.Chris:  What tools do you like using?\nMatt:  Google\u2019s Browser Synch, Google browser synch lets you keep all of your bookmarks in synch  at work or  home.  If you are worried about privacy you can encrypt it.  My laptop died, right before coming to the UK, I easily got all my bookmarks back because of Google Browser Synch.I also like Google Reader and GMAIL.  I use to use Bloglines, but now I really like Google Reader.Chris:  You mentioned Ask\u2019s Bloglines \u2013 what are other Non-Google tools do you use?\nMatt:  Yahoo site explorer, I really like how you can explore the back links to your site.  Google\u2019s webmaster console now added that feature to webmaster toolset and continue to look for it to improve.  MSN image search \u2013 fun to be able to scroll and get fine detail Ask\u2019s Blogline  and them hiring Gary Price was very smart.  And Ask\u2019s smart answers \u2013 how searching for a blogger you\u2019ll get their rss feed links.Chris:  Most everybody here, is in extreme learning mode, going to go back home to improve \u2013 what single nugget of advice could you give to them?\nMatt:  If I can only give one nugget \u2013 it would be to try out webmaster console because its great now and it will only get better.  Show how long it takes pages to load, there\u2019s info on back links and will even show some kind of spam penalties.  It\u2019s a one stop shop \u2013 points out Vanessa Fox\u2013 applauds Vanessa.And now, an announcement, Webmaster Central is coming out of beta \u2013 Vanessa going to post on this.  And Google webmaster blog is going to turn on comments \u2013 first Google blog to do this.Chris: Google use to be monolithic and not say anything is that changing?  That has changed a lot over the recent time, can you talk to that?\nMatt:  Our first goal is our users, so we had deal with the spam first.  We didn\u2019t have a lot of people at Google so all the resources were dedicated to dealing with that.  But after that was dealt with to a manageable degree,  we wanted to give as much help, and advice as to webmasters to get better pages.  So this is the trend Google is going to \u2013 before they couldn\u2019t \u2013 now they areChris:  The original computers that Larry &amp; Sergei used to build Google was still operating when I last got a tour of Google, is this still the case?\nMatt:  Not sure, even a machine that is relatively old still have use.  We try to use them as long as possibly.  But eventually they become a tax right off or donation.Chris:  Crystal ball time, where do you see Google going in the next 3-5 years?\nMatt:  Fantastic question, in my own opinion \u2013 personalization, and localization.  Also if you have your data, you can store it at Google.  You can almost start your own business of 5-10 business for free.  Google\u2019s ambition to organize the worlds information, this is really where its goingGoogle desktop is also a huge benefit \u2013 no privacy issues.  Helps to find old searches \u2013 makes things more accessible.Chris:  Matt Cutts thanks very much\nMatt: Your welcome, thank you for having me here.Contributed by Liana \u201CLi\u201D Evans, of Commerce360 and Search Marketing Gurus.com."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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