Is Matt Cutts Pulling the “I Did You a Favor” Card
Posted on November 14th, 2007by Michael Gray in Google
C’mon Matt you either do things because they are the right thing to do or don’t do them at all, I don’t think you want to get into the Google’s did you a favor, now stop bad mouthing us card at all. Bringing up stuff like this just makes people question your motivation …
Why get into a back-and-forth? It will be a linkbait for Aaron and you could use that time to write more posts about general topics. I believe if Google took some action, it was probably reasonable, especially since you did some extra work to help Aaron last year when he was being sued by another company.
If you want to tackle something a bit more relevant let’s bring up off topic linkbait and why you think it’s no only OK, and give it the stamp of approval by linking to it yourself (for those of you who missed it he linked to a chiropractors website just because he transcribed matt’s session).
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November 14th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Uh huh…. after all that has gone on recently, I found it interesting that his only recent foray into the world of SEO was this. I am sure you know as well as I, the game that is afoot.
Nuff said…. back to my cave.
November 14th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Hi Michael, I was hoping to preempt critics who would say “Oh, Matt just has a chip on his shoulder about Aaron” by giving an example where I didn’t have a chip on my shoulder and took Aaron’s side in a dispute. But I guess there will always be critics, eh?
Regarding linkbait, you might have missed my comments on exactly what you’re asking about at
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/whitehat-seo-tips-for-bloggers/#comment-110803
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/whitehat-seo-tips-for-bloggers/#comment-110815
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/whitehat-seo-tips-for-bloggers/#comment-110862
I’ll include the relevant excerpts that discuss ontopic/whitehat linkbaiting, just to make it easier:
“Matt_Not_Cutts and Robert, normally I get the question in the exact opposite way: “Suppose I run a heavy farm equipment blog. There’s clearly nothing interesting to talk about or linkbait to do in the farm equipment space.†David’s blog proves that just taking part in web-wide conversations can stir up interest. Blogs are a great way to humanize, to participate, and yes, to get links. People sometimes link to my Firefox posts more than my SEO posts, for example. That’s not a horrible thing. And simply by putting on his thinking cap and participating in the conversation (David sometimes comments over here, although I didn’t connect it in my mind until we talked in person), that contributes to your web savviness and success.”
and
“Did David get creative? Sure. But much of that creativity was completely on-topic. For example, he posted the full content of two books he wrote about his subject area: http://www.bodyabcs.com/Library.html”
and finally
“Adam Jusko, I agree with your points. David Klein did a lot of on-topic stuff as well. I was this close to adding the link to David Klein’s two books that he wrote and put online about his area of expertise, but I was doing a lot of links to his site and didn’t want it to be rah rah link link to everything on his page. I could have pointed out more in the post that David also did a bunch of work to improve his site, including on-topic resources that also acted as extremely-relevant linkbait.”
Thanks for the chance to clarify on that linkbait question!
November 14th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
You read Matts Aaron Wall post yet? Was hoping to see your comments there, specially with the FUD issue.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:55 am
so Matt to recap it’s ok to go with off topic linkbait as long as the quality of the post is good?
For example “25 Hot Cheerleaders of the Farmland” for a farm equipment blog.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Hey, I’d subscribe to that!
I can go off on tangents at the drop of a hat.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I’m writing a post on why off-topic linkbait is totally fine and dandy for Google. Although, Michael, I suspect you are fully aware of the many good reasons
November 15th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Oh look there is randfish looking to funnel traffic and attention from Michael Gray’s blog!
At least you are not posting as an alias this time.
November 15th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
we seo’s and site owners overreacted to the pr adjustment and saw it as a slap on the wrist except for those instantly lost ad revenue.
they could have used other means to adjust their ranking formula, but in the long run it is inconsequential
Aaron wants to resume business as usual, and so should we