dannysullivan

I absolutely don't think it's a laughing matter. I made a joke in the interview with the reporter as a kind of icebreaker (which clearly didn't seem to go well).

But as I also explained after doing that, "I’m pretty sure, went into what I thought was a more serious and thoughtful discussion, at least from my perspective."

I don't think making a joke about something is the same as someone then thinking an entire matter isn't serious. But I can appreciate you disagree.

It's because when I was interviewed, what I said was all speaking officially for Google. You can attribute anything there to the company directly.

My blog post -- I wrote that on my own. No one from the Google communications team reviewed it, approved it, vetted it and so on. That's what I was trying to explain.

That doesn't mean, of course, people won't think it somehow reflects on Google or what I do there. It no doubt will. But that's not quite the same thing as something being an official company statement.

I know it was a long post I made. But yes, I (and we) recognize people want the results better. I covered this at the end (along with some other parts):

"That said, there’s room to improve. There always is. Search and content can move through cycles. You can have a rise in unhelpful content, and search systems evolve to deal with it. We’re in one of those cycles. I fully recognize people would like to see better search results on Google. I know how hard people within Google Search are working to do this. I’m fortunate to be a part of that. To the degree I can help — which includes better communicating, ensuring that I reflect the humbleness that we — and I feel — I’ll keep improving on myself."

"They say that old content does actually affect a site in terms of it’s average ranking" -- We didn't say this. We said the exact opposite.

No. I don't code. I'm not an engineer. That doesn't mean I can't communicate how Google Search works. And our systems do not calculate how much "old" content is on a site to determine if it is "fresh" enough to rank better. The engineers I work with reading about all this today find it strange anyone thinks this.

There is. Which is why I specifically talked only about writing for algorithmic systems. Machine learning systems are different, and not everyone fully understands how they work, only that they do and can be influenced.

I actually work for our search quality team, and my job is to foster two-way communication between the search quality team and those outside Google. When issues come up outside Google, I try to explain what's happened to the best I can. I bring feedback into the search quality team and Google Search generally to help foster potential improvements we can make.

No. But it's also complicated, as Matt did thinks beyond web spam. Matt worked within the search quality team, and he communicated a lot from search quality to the outside world about how Search works. After Matt left, someone else took over web spam. Meanwhile, I'd retired from journalism writing about search. Google approached me about starting what became a new role of "public liaison of search," which I've done for about six years now. I work within the search quality team, just as Matt did, and that type of two-way communication role he had, I do. In addition, we have an amazing Search Relations team that also works within search quality, and they focus specifically on providing guidance to site owners and creators (my remit is a bit broader than that, so I deal with more than just creator issues).

thanks, Ernie!

I'm the source. I officially work for Google. The account is verified by X. It's followed by the official Google account. It links to my personal account; my personal account links back to it. I'm quoted in the Gizmodo story that links to the tweet. I'm real! Though now perhaps I doubt my own existence....