Earnings Exposed

In this interview Matt Cutts is talking about his first encounter with spam, Google webmaster central and future challenges for search engines. If you dont want to view the 10 minute long video, the questions that were asked to Matt are listed below with parts of his answers.

Can you remember when you first came across spam?

He can. It was actually porn spam and that is why he remembered it, he said! Dirty Matt!

What do you think are the biggest challenges for search engines in the next five years?

Users expect more!

How can small webmasters compete with big players in their markets?

Be creative (oh really? never heard that before) pick a certain niche and become an authority in that niche! Become an expert of a small aspect of a big niche. Move fast and think about new techniques.

Every webmaster should know about?

Google Webmaster Central. You can find all of your backlinks there, can check for keywords that are leading visitors to your sites, checking Google crawlers, find broken links on your site and many other statistics! Matt his favorite from webmaster central: Google will tell you if you have hidden text or other spam on your website.

Do you think there is a difference in the way Google interacts with webmasters in different countries?

Yes, every market is different and they are all important! Google is sensitive with different markets.

Do you check for paid links which pass PageRank on every website you visit?

Yes, I do.

What are the funniest questions you’ve ever been asked at a conference?

How much can I get away with? Quite funny! Won’t tell.

What would you do if Google finally killed all spam and you suddenly had loads of time?

I like gadgets, open source, ubuntu, linus and esspecially plugins. Firefox extensions, photoshop extensions! I enjoy writing them and using them.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen…Even though he goes out on a purge to get rid of all link sellers, he is still a person like you and I. Pretty funny that his first spam was from a porn. Even those that go after spam get spam. Funny.