Look how old this is! I post at SearchCommander.com now, and this post was published 17 years 3 months 3 days ago. This industry changes FAST, so blindly following the advice here *may not* be a good idea! If you're at all unsure, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and ask.
After what many are calling the best SES session, Matt Cutts was caught on camera physically expressing his feelings about the way he was treated, as he attempted to strangle Graywolf!
During his portion of the session, Michael Gray attacked Google pretty viciously, but did so in a methodical and logical way that was nearly impossible to disagree with.
I’d never seen Matt actually squirm before, and being in the front row, I could swear I saw sweat on his brow. I actually did feel bad for him, but he really was placed in an indefensable positition.
I think the height of utter hypocracy was best demonstrated when Todd Malicoat showed a screenshot of a Google search for “buy text links”, and everyone in the audiience could see that Google was profiting from the very activity they publicly condemn.
Next to pile on were Todd Friesen and then Greg Boser, who both laid out their cases very matter of factly, and again, barely a sylable could be debated.
The only hope of salvation came from Andy Baio, who is the founder of Upcoming & Waxy but his point was basically that people SHOULD be nice and not to cheat. Well, yeah, that’s true, but teachers should get paid more than basketball players, and thats just not the way the world works, is it?
The writeups on this session were incredible, and you can read all the gory details as captured impeccably by Tamar Weinberg of Search Engine Round Table, Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz and Lisa Barone from Bruce Clay. Dana Larsen at Top Rank Blog also has some insight worth reading, with a funny analogy.
I predict that this session may actually lead to the death of (visible) PageRank in the Google toolbar, but there’s not much they can do about the algorithm’s dependancy on inbound links, or the publics desire to trade green paper for green pixels.
The attack? – Well, Matt and Michael were just joking around…
The picture was shot by Mark Knowles, from Smart Solutions, a Bend Oregon web development company, and I’d better make it clear that no money changed hands in exchange for the picture, or for any of these links 😉
Nice summary with good relevant links. Thanks Scott.
(Did the envelope arrive safely? 😉
Scott,
Great post and great meeting you in San Jose! Thanks for the good feedback, too. 😉
And that’s a great picture, Mark!
Nice joke photo! Almost as much fun as
http://www.mattcutts.com/images/brainray.jpg
Scott,
The more I read the more I feel like I missed out on a great event. I see this as a large factor in the process of changing out industry. Wish I could have been there.
Great Post.
Mark S. – shhh!
Matt S. – Good to meet you too – unfortunately, we will never be doing any business together of any kind, or buying links of any sort 😉
Matt C. – so the headline was good linkbait, but I should’ve noted that it was a humorous photo. I thought it was obvious, lest anyone think Graywolf was in masochistic ecstasy 😉
Thanks for the Sphinn!
Mark L. –
Yeah, to be honest, I actually said to someone “this will probably be the last time I attend SES” mainly because there are so many other conferences I want to go to. There just aren’t enough weeks in a year!
However, not only was a great time had by all, and I made a lot of great connections, I also found it to be pretty educational. I guess I’m on the hook for going to a least one SES a year from here on out…