Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts

""

Cutts in 2008
Born Matthew Cutts
1972/1973 (age 42–43)[1]
Alma mater University of Kentucky (BS '95)
UNC-Chapel Hill (MS '98)
Occupation Programmer
Known for SafeSearch, Google’s family filter, Webspam Team
Matt Cutts' voice
recorded June 2013

Matthew "Matt" Cutts (born 1972 or 1973)[1] is an American software engineer. He leads the web spam team at Google, and works with the search quality team on search engine optimization issues.[2][3]

Education

Cutts received a Bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics from the University of Kentucky in 1995.[4][5] He went on to receive a Master of Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998.[6]

Career

Cutts started his career in search when working on his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In January 2000 Cutts joined Google as a software engineer.[2] At 2007 PubCon, Cutts stated that his field of study was computer science; he then moved into the field of information retrieval, and search engines after taking two outside classes from the university's Information and Library Science department.[7] Before working at the Search Quality group at Google, Cutts worked at the ads engineering group and SafeSearch, Google's family filter, which he designed.[2][8] There he earned the nickname "porn cookie guy" by giving his wife's homemade cookies to any Googler who provided an example of unwanted pornography in the search results.[9]

Cutts is one of the co-inventors listed upon a Google patent related to search engines and web spam.[10]

In 2006, The Wall Street Journal said Cutts "is to search results what Alan Greenspan was to interest rates".[11]

In November 2010, Cutts started a contest challenging developers to make Microsoft Kinect more compatible with the Linux operating system. At the time, Microsoft had stated that the use of Kinect with devices other than the Xbox 360 was not supported by them.[12]

Cutts has given advice and made statements on help related to the use of the Google search engine and related issues.[13]

In January 2012, on the news that Google had violated its own quality guidelines, Cutts defended the downgraded PageRank of the Google Chrome homepage results noting that it was not given special dispensation.[14][15]

In July 2014, a statement was released on his blog by Matt himself, stating that he was going to take a few months of leave to spend more time with his family and try new things, including a half ironman race.[16] Upon joining Google Matt agreed with his wife to work for 4–5 years and then spend a period of time together. Fifteen years later, Matt made the decision to do so.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Matt Cutts: The Greenspan of Google". Bloomberg Businessweek. March 17, 2011. Matt Cutts, the 38-year-old
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/about-me/
  3. ↑ Ward, Mark (June 8, 2004). "Inside the Google search machine". BBC News Online. Retrieved May 4, 2008.
  4. ↑ Olgiate, Christina (October 21, 2012). "Google employee Matt Cutts returns to UK". The Kentucky Kernel (University of Kentucky).
  5. ↑ "Just Google Him: CS alumnus talks about how UK prepared him to work for the Search giant". University of Kentucky, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering. August 26, 2011.
  6. ↑ "Graduate School Honors Fellowship Winners". News And Notes (24). Department of Computer Science, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Spring 1999.
  7. ↑ Kaushal, Navneet. "PubCon – Matt Cutts Keynote". PubCon 2007. WebProNews. Retrieved October 7, 2012.
  8. ↑ "Google's chastity belt too tight". ZDNet. April 23, 2004. Retrieved January 13, 2015.
  9. ↑ "'Google': An interesting read on a powerhouse company". USA Today. November 13, 2005.
  10. ↑ Acharya, A., et al., (2005) Information retrieval based on historical data
  11. ↑ "Readers React to 'SEO' Contest". The Wall Street Journal. February 16, 2006. Retrieved January 13, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Kinect hacked days after release". BBC News (BBC). November 12, 2010. Retrieved November 15, 2010.
  13. ↑ http://www.webpronews.com/matt-cutts-talks-keyword-density-2011-12
  14. ↑ Arthur, Charles (January 4, 2012). "Google shoves Chrome down search rankings after sponsored blog mixup". London: The Guardian.
  15. ↑ Shankland, Stephen (January 4, 2012). "Two days after Google flub, Unruly raises $25 million". CNET.
  16. ↑ Cutts, Matt. "On Leave". Matt Cutts Blog. Retrieved July 4, 2014.

Further reading

External links