Matt Cutts Spins the Google Redirect Issue
Source Title:
Indexing Summit 2: Redirects, Titles & Descriptions
Indexing Summit 2: Redirects, Titles & Descriptions
Source Url:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002351.html
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002351.html
Story Text:
Were you to ask me what Matt Cutts did at Google, despite knowing he's one of their chief engineers, i'd have to say that "he does Google PR" - Marissa Mayer has nothing on Matt, he's a consumate PR pro, whether his job title says so or not.
In the Indexing Summit at SES San Jose he addressed the 302 hijacking issues that have plagued webmasters, and even, on one memorable occasion Google, when their Adsense page was hijacked accidentally.
Matt's take was typical for the audience he was addressing. SES isn't about old pros, who know the score, it's about Search Newbies, it's about marketing, PR and the glitter and glamour of Search. His comments were clearly aimed at deflecting heat over known problem and steering the wide-eyed masses away from this hotspot of discontent amongst the webmaster community.
He said...
Were you to ask me what Matt Cutts did at Google, despite knowing he's one of their chief engineers, i'd have to say that "he does Google PR" - Marissa Mayer has nothing on Matt, he's a consumate PR pro, whether his job title says so or not.
In the Indexing Summit at SES San Jose he addressed the 302 hijacking issues that have plagued webmasters, and even, on one memorable occasion Google, when their Adsense page was hijacked accidentally.
Matt's take was typical for the audience he was addressing. SES isn't about old pros, who know the score, it's about Search Newbies, it's about marketing, PR and the glitter and glamour of Search. His comments were clearly aimed at deflecting heat over known problem and steering the wide-eyed masses away from this hotspot of discontent amongst the webmaster community.
He said...
Right now, they are open to doing what Yahoo! does, just indexing the target URL. BUT, you don't have the pretty URLs.
and, wait for it......
State at Google right now, is that Google is not aware of any hi-jackings, they need to tell Google about them
Which after seeing Google's own pages getting hijacked, is more than a little amusing :)
- Y! MyWeb
Wait until they find out about the OTHER high-jacking trick
Do a search for "Magellan" (remember the old search engine?) and you should see what I mean.
I ain't naming no other names.
To Clarify Some Things...
"Matt's take was typical for the audience he was addressing. SES isn't about old pros, who know the score, it's about Search Newbies, it's about marketing, PR and the glitter and glamour of Search."
Nick, this was a pretty advanced audience with plenty that know the score. Matt wasn't up there thinking, "Ah, dumb idiots, I can say anything."
What also wasn't clear from the live coverage you read is that Matt said -- without any hesitation or spin -- that he thinks Google should do what Yahoo does. If it were up to him, that's what they would be doing. It's not up to him.
He explained that the engineer in charge of fixing the problem is telling Matt that it's solved. So that's what he reported to the audience. He also told the audience that if they do see a problem still happening, to report that and essentially give him the ammunition to say the Yahoo fix should be implemented.
So far from a Google PR spin, I was pretty amazed that he was allowed to air a split within Google over the issue. And if the problem does show up again, there there's no excuse left for them not to take the Yahoo approach.
I'm with Danny
I sat inside the plex and discussed this with Matt and one of the engineers which is working on the 302, at the moment they have two options, and both camps in google are fighting their corners for which is best solution :
a)the user
b)the search engine
in fact I think this is the first time I have ever seen google public say there is a spilt on a policy... if it was a PR thing it was pretty darn clever one
DaveN
added I was also in the session when Matt said what he said
surely
a) the user and b) the search engine are both wanting the same thing?
Correct me if I am wrong -
Correct me if I am wrong -
The problem is NOT fixed.
(How could it be if the google staff is still deciding on options to correct the problem)
No Gurtie...
The Search Engine wants money, the user wants information.
No Spin, My Arse
I thought Google users....
...all wanted to visit the 'plex and meet Sergey (?)
DaveN did, aswell as Jenstar
DaveN did, aswell as Jenstar and one other i forget the name of... recently.
Chris_R : cough :
chris_r ( the porn one ) was the third person in our 5 hour tour lol .. :)
DaveN
surely a) the user and b)
surely a) the user and b) the search engine are both wanting the same thing?
in an ideal world yes... but this is the search game and at the moment Google opted for B), the split is we should follow Yahoo and handle the 302 like that.. the probelm is half think it's the correct way half think it's the wrong way.... % may have been changed to protect the innocent ( pssst Googler Paul your wrong ;) )
DaveN
Magellen - priceless tip, thanks for that!
Seems that hijackings are still working in Google. Thanks for the tip, Michael.