It feels weird talking about Matt Cutts at this point. Back before he took his leave from the company, it felt that every other post written was about something Matt Cutts said or did. But I guess it’s just something you get used to, right?
As many of you know, Matt took his leave from Google as the head of search spam back in July, telling everybody that he would be gone for several months. But today, Matt shared some news as a note added to his original July post about going on leave by saying:
“When I went on leave, I wanted to see how webspam would go without me. I’ve been talking to people on both the algorithmic and manual webspam teams during my leave, and they’ve been doing a top-notch job. So I’m planning on extending my leave into 2015.”
Because the end date of his original planned leave was through October, he made that statement on Halloween. But now that his leave has been officially extended, who knows when he’s planning on returning to Google. Either way, I’m sure he’ll enjoy the extra time away with family.
Because he’s admitted himself that the current search spam team set up has been doing fine without him, and since he wants to spend more time with family, does this mean that Matt could decide to be done? Could this be a precursor to retirement?
The only reason Matt would have to return as head of search spam is because of his status at Google as well as among other SEOs. He’s known as a rockstar to people in the industry, and who knows if that could hurt Google if Matt decides to stay gone. But at the same time, because of the polices that were created by him, and the unhappiness that had been created by him for some, this could help Google as well.