Rand Fishkin, CEO of Seattle-based SEOmoz.org, was in Salt Lake City this week speaking at the first stop on this summer’s Family MozCation tour. In between sipping Corona, signing autographs and posing in pictures with Utah fans, Fishkin spoke with SEO.com about, among other things, his relationship with Google Spam Czar Matt Cutts.
- Shown on the right, Rand Fishkin spoke with SEO.com this week in a one-on-one interview at MozCation in Salt Lake City. Fishkin talked about his relationship with Google Spam Czar Matt Cutts, left.
Fishkin’s company is a leading provider of search engine optimization software and his efforts to get websites to rank in Google have compelled Fishkin to delve deeply into why some sites show up No. 1 as others don’t even make it into the top 100 search results.
Utah is the only spot in North America that SEOmoz will visit during MozCation. Next Fishkin is off to Brazil, Peru and Spain.
SEO.com: Do you and Cutts have a pretty interesting relationship?
Fishkin: “Interesting” is a very good adjective to describe it. He is a good guy, but … I want to be very transparent and open.”
SEO.com: Will you characterize your interaction with Google since starting your career in SEO?
Fishkin: Early in my career I struggled for a long time to figure out how Google ranked pages and why some things ranked and some things didn’t … It’s frustrating to those in the (SEO) industry and it’s frustrating to me too.
The reason that I am frustrated with them is that I don’t feel there is a conflict. We’re on the same team as Google. I’ll use a football analogy; Google is a quarterback refusing to use us — all its great receivers. Throw the ball and let people like us move it forward for you.
SEO.com: How does Google view SEO companies?
Fishkin: My bias would be that I think Google views the situation more risky than it really is … So they operate from a perspective of fear.
SEO.com: What’s your major beef with the search giant?
Fishkin: They’re not transparent. We’re very open, and if Google would go that one step to be much more transparent they would earn a lot of people’s trust and they would earn a lot of forgiveness when they screw up.
SEO.com: When has Google “screwed up” in the past?
Fishkin: Google spam is a huge problem.
SEO.com: How is SEOmoz more open with information than Google?
Fishkin: There is not very much that we would not make public. Clearly, transparency has been really good for us. I’ll tell you our revenue, the number of users who have a pro account. I’ll tell you the sources I am pursuing for venture capital financing.
And that’s exactly what I would do with all the results I care about.
Hmmm…the title of this article is great for getting noticed, but seems a little more adversarial than the actual content of the conversation.
That aside, I think Rand’s comments reinforce the fact that there seems to be a complete misunderstanding of people who provide SEO services. Danny Sullivan also pointed this out in his Keynote at SMX recently.
It seems Google has bought into the misguided view that people who work in SEO are spammers. Not only is this insulting, but also extremely puzzling. Google tells us what they think makes a good web site – SEO’s work hard to help their clients achieve that and in return Google assumes they are all just trying to gain advantage by dishonest means. That sucks.
If Google had any idea how much of my time is spent explaining to clients why all those dodgy “surefire ways to beat Google” are NOT the way to do business, maybe they would get it.
vet nice. nice article
Special thanks to Rand for leading the way when it comes to transparency.
We can only hope that that enough of the Google “helpers” adopt this bias and start to influence the big G when it comes to talking openly about the stuff that matters.
Hey Pat – great to meet you and enjoyed our chat. I think, unfortunately, there’s a lot of cutting/pasting and jumping around from the 20-minute, detailed conversation we had to this article, which paints a far more contentious picture than what I suggested on several fronts.
Next time, let’s do it over email so the right words make it into the right place
BTW – Loved Salt Lake City and had an incredible time at Mozcation. Many thanks to everyone who attended and the great turnout from SEO.com in particular.
Hi Rand.
Thank you for reading the blog. I’ve appreciated the email conversations we have had in the past and especially enjoyed meeting you and chatting at MozCation. Your presentation was amazing.
I hope you don’t feel you were misrepresented in the piece. I tried to stick to the quotes I had in my pad. I was envisioning the Q and A as our conversation progressed.
Thanks for coming to Salt Lake City. I look forward to more communication in the future.
Sha Menz and Justin — you each make great points. I thought Rand’s answers to several of my questions were fascinating. The SEOmoz chief seemed very honest and candid — things any ex-news reporter (like me) would appreciate. Thanks for checking out the blog, y’all.
This is a very very short interview… I want more!
I think that Google has a suspicious view of SEO Companies because it is difficult to draw the line between those who are transparent and ethically ‘upright’ and those who will do anything they can to rank high their (or their client’s) websites higher in the search engine.
Nothing new here. Move along.
The quarterback analogy seems to be really true. Google needs us as much as we need them.
Personally I don’t think Google need the support of the SEO Community at all, the SEO industry is a result of search engines becoming a mainstream avenue for commercial entities, it wasn’t the other way around!
As for Google being more open I can’t ever see that happening, at the end of the day we are all looking for ways to get our clients ranking higher while avoiding any sort of penalties…
We really are one step behind you in the UK when it comes to cutting edge SEO! Thank god for SEO.com so we can try and keep up!
I laughed on this “Do you and Cutts have a pretty interesting relationship?” and the way Rand answered it. The success of SEOMOZ lies in great relationship built around the community. And how do they built that? Through transparency.
yes This is a very very short interview can you teach me more
Interesting interview Pat.
I think that symbiosis is a key factor for ‘SEO Software’ companies and all search engines, never mind just worrying about Google. There is a DMZ for both parties, though, and it needs to be respected.
I will back Google to a point, I grew up on the Net at the time Google was still Goo Googling… My experience with SEO is to keep the content relevant, succinct and updated. All of my clients rank well, no software used – (I lied – a browser, Notepad and FTP or WordPress, no SEO software, just to clarify).
I don’t want to devalue SEO software, but the problem is once it gets into the wrong hands all hell breaks loose. This is what bothers search engines. Just look at Twitter, a user can end up with 10,000 followers in a week. But then once you remove all the bots you’re left with a nephew and a buddy from work!
I downloaded an SEO program about a month ago, nothing to do with SEOmoz by the way. It was a spam weapon. It was sent to the trash can the same day.
If a website ends up on page 10 then that site has ingrained issues that SEO software won’t fix. Tear it down, rework it and put it out there again. Hey, sometimes the hosting server is the cause, not the website… lots to think about in SEO land but I’m with Google and my transparency ends right here!
Cheers.
Paul