Matt Cutts

Matthew Cutts (born 1972 or 1973)[1] is an American software engineer. Cutts is the Administrator of the United States Digital Service. He was first appointed as acting administrator, to later be confirmed as full administrator in October 2018.[2] Cutts previously worked with Google as part of the search quality team on search engine optimization issues.[3][4] He is the former head of the web spam team at Google.[5]

Matt Cutts
Cutts in 2008
Born
Matthew Cutts

1972/1973 (age 47–48)[1]
Alma mater
OccupationProgrammer
Known forSafeSearch, Google's family filter, Webspam Team
Spouse(s)
Cindy Cutts
​
​
(m. 2000; died 2018)​

Education

Cutts completed his high school career in Morehead, Kentucky at Rowan County Senior High School.[6] He received a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics from the University of Kentucky in 1995.[7][8] He went on to receive a Master of Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998.[9]

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.[3] 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.[10] 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.[3][11] 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.[12]

Cutts is one of the co-inventors listed upon a Google patent related to search engines and web spam.[13]

In 2006, The Wall Street Journal said Cutts "is to search results what Alan Greenspan was to interest rates".[14]

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.[15]

Cutts has given advice and made statements on help related to the use of the Google search engine and related issues.[16]

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.[17][18]

In July 2014, Cutts stated 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.[19] Upon joining Google, Cutts agreed with his wife to work for four to five years and then spend a period of time together. Fifteen years later, Cutts made the decision to do so.[20]

In May 2015, Google announced it had placed someone new in Cutts' position as the head of the web spam team, but this person would not be an official spokesperson for publisher and webmaster issues.[21]

In January 2017, Cutts announced that he would be leaving Google to join the US Digital Service.[20] Cutts noted that he handed in his notice to Google on December 31, 2016. Cutts was originally going to spend his leave at the USDS for three months which then turned into six months.[22]

References
  1. "Matt Cutts: The Greenspan of Google". Bloomberg Businessweek. March 17, 2011. Matt Cutts, the 38-year-old
  2. "Matt Cutts gets the official nod for top spot at USDS". FedScoop. October 22, 2018.
  3. "About Me". Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO.
  4. Ward, Mark (June 8, 2004). "Inside the Google search machine". BBC News Online. Retrieved May 4, 2008.
  5. "Google Has New Head Of Web Spam But Won't Be The "New Matt Cutts"". Search Engine Land. May 22, 2015. Matt Cutts remains on leave, but Search Engine Land can report that Google does have someone new in his position of head of web spam fighting.
  6. Grant Stevens (July 13, 2012). "Google this: Matt Cutts, hometown proud". The Morehead News. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
  7. Olgiate, Christina (October 21, 2012). "Google employee Matt Cutts returns to UK". The Kentucky Kernel. University of Kentucky. Archived from the original on October 10, 2014.
  8. "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.
  9. "Graduate School Honors Fellowship Winners". News And Notes. Department of Computer Science, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Spring 1999. Archived from the original on January 29, 2011. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  10. Kaushal, Navneet. "PubCon – Matt Cutts Keynote". PubCon 2007. WebProNews. Archived from the original on May 14, 2013. Retrieved October 7, 2012.
  11. "Google's chastity belt too tight". ZDNet. April 23, 2004. Retrieved January 13, 2015.
  12. "'Google': An interesting read on a powerhouse company". USA Today. November 13, 2005.
  13. Acharya, A., et al., (2005) Information retrieval based on historical data
  14. "Readers React to 'SEO' Contest". The Wall Street Journal. February 16, 2006. Retrieved January 13, 2015.
  15. "Kinect hacked days after release". BBC News. BBC. November 12, 2010. Retrieved November 15, 2010.
  16. "Matt Cutts Talks Keyword Density". www.webpronews.com. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  17. Arthur, Charles (January 4, 2012). "Google shoves Chrome down search rankings after sponsored blog mixup". The Guardian. London.
  18. Shankland, Stephen (January 4, 2012). "Two days after Google flub, Unruly raises $25 million". CNET.
  19. Cutts, Matt. "On Leave". Matt Cutts Blog. Retrieved July 4, 2014.
  20. Ratnesar, Romesh (October 21, 2018). "Meet the Obama Appointee the Trump Administration Loves". Washingtonian. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  21. "Google Has New Head Of Web Spam But Won't Be The "New Matt Cutts"". Retrieved June 18, 2015.
  22. "Staying with the US Digital Service". Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO. January 19, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2017.

Further reading

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