Category: Engineering mgmt

Just returned on Friday from Pubcon Las Vegas. Vegas is the place to be if you are drinking and gambling ... and if you're not (as I wasn't), it's all kind of odd. I had the Scrooge-like realization on the return flight that it could have been Salt Lake City for all I cared. :)… Continue reading Recap – Pubcon Las Vegas 2006 →

At SEO conferences (like Pubcon Las Vegas) I often introduce myself by saying that, among other things, my group fights search-engine spam. But I've noticed that whenever I say the S-word to SEOs there's a little flinch, an awkward little pause. Not as though I've done something unforgivable, but as though I'd ... farted in… Continue reading The word “spam” →

I'm taking a few days to see the presos and meet the folks at Webmaster World in Vegas. I'll be representing Y! Search on two panels: Site Structure for Crawlability Duplicate Content Issues If you're at the show, drop by and say hello - or leave a comment - or send me a note at… Continue reading In Las Vegas for PubCon (WebmasterWorld) →

In one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits, "Tom Ridge" explains the U.S. terrorist-threat color codes: Tonight, I'm proud to unveil my agency's new weapon in the War on Terror: the Homeland Security advisory system. It's a simple five level system, which uses color codes to indicate varying levels of terrorist threat. The lowest… Continue reading Search engine optimization (SEO) from black to white →

I never know what to make of books organized in this pseudo-glossary style, where the only organization is alphabetical-by-topic-title. It seems like an abdication of the author's responsibility to impose meaningful structure. It also makes the reviewer's task slightly artificial - no doubt the encouraged mode of reading is dipping and sampling (perhaps with odd… Continue reading SEO book review: ABC of SEO (George) →

It's always nice when the borderline between valuable content and webspam content is clear-cut - in that case, the goal of the search engine is straightforwardly to keep the spam out of search results. Unfortunately, some quality issues are a continuum, from the best of the web to the worst. One of these issues is… Continue reading Aggregation →

I'm planning to start a short book review series on this blog, focused on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) books. The idea would be to review the books from a search engine perspective - what makes sense, what seems crazy/dangerous, etc. I'll also focus on Y!-specific info and advice to the extent I can. I'm going… Continue reading SEO book reviews →

We had the AIRWEB anti-webspam workshop Thursday before last, in connection with the SIGIR conference. In theory this was organized by Brian Davison, Marc Najork, and myself, but this is really Brian's baby, and he did most of the work. Overall, I was pleased. Unlike the first AIRWEB, the paper reviewing process was "competitive", meaning… Continue reading AIRWEB ‘06 →

I had a great time at my first(!) SES (Search Engine Strategies), in San Jose. The SIGIR/AIRWEB conflict meant that I only made it to days 1-3, and unfortunately didn't get to do a panel I was looking forward to that was moved to Day 4. The one panel I did (Duplicate Content) was fun… Continue reading SES San Jose round-up →

I now and hereby declare the "Matt Cutts of ..." jokes tired, and officially retire them. 🙂 First of how, how could I presume? Secondly, no one is the someone else of anything - we are all unique and _special_ people, as individual as snowflakes. 🙂 Seems like Matt's job is more outward-facing all the… Continue reading No more Matt jokes →