20 Interesting Facts about Matt Cutts – The Google Guy!

Matt Cutts, you might be familiar with that name. No? Remember Google Panda and Penguin? Does that ring any bells? If you’re a blogger, then you’ll know what Google Panda and Penguin is. If not, then don’t worry. Google Panda and Penguins were two most infamous algorithm updates. And the person behind them, is none other than Matt Cutts. He is the head of Google’s webspam team. Now he might not be any Lary Elison, but he did give Google a public face. He is a SEO expert and provides guidance to webmasters. Some consider him a hero, while others think he’s a villain working against their sites. But the fact is, he is the guy you need to follow in order to keep yourself updated about Google’s workings, and also to get expert advice from him. Here are some interesting facts that you might like to know about him.

1. Matt is 40 years old and is originally from Kentucky.

Education

2. Matt has a Bachelor of Science degree in not only in Computer Science, but also in Mathematics! He completed his B.S from University of Kentucky in 1995, receiving the Maurice Clay award for outstanding graduating senior fro the College of Engineering.

3. He has a Masters degree 9in Computer Science, which he got from University of North Carolina.

4. Matt was doing a PhD in Computer Graphics fro University of North Carolina, but he left that to join Google in 2000. He doesn’t think he’ll be going back to grad school.

Before Google

5. Matt is the former president of Golden key Honor Society. He received many fellowships, such as the Link Foundation Fellowship, NSF Graduate Fellowship, Governor’s Scholarship, Gaines Fellowship in the Humanities, Singletary Scholarship, and more! He was also a co-captain of a computer programming team which placed 20th in the world in a competition.

6. He worked as a Software Engineer in a North Carolina based gaming engine company called Numerical Design Ltd.

7. As an undergraduate student, Matt worked for the U.S Department of Defense as part of the University of Kentucky’s co-operative educational program. (By the way, he no longer has his top-secret clearance)

At Google

8. Matt joined Google in 2000. At that time, Google had under a 100 employees. So he can well be called a founder of Google in a manner of speaking. But at that time, his friends though he was crazy, working for such a small company. Guess who’s crazy now? 😛

9. He was previously Senior Staff Software Engineer for Google. But since 2004, he is head of Google’s webspam team.

10. According to Matt, he “wrote the first version of SafeSearch, which is Google’s family filter” (adult safe search).

11. Matt Cutts master-minded the infamous Google Panda and Google Penguin algorithm updates that enraged many a webmasters. Perhaps that is why he has become well known ever since 2011.

Fun facts

12. Matt has been known to call himself the “human voice between Google and webmasters”.

13. Matt owns a Chevrolet Cavalier (<3 btw :P), a Honda Civic, and a Ford Escort.

14. Matt challenges his colleagues and subordinates to try and find porn in Google Safe search. The one who finds it gets a cookie made by his wife. A positive work environment, don’t you think? 🙂

15. His close friends and group members are dubbed as cutlets 🙂

16. He admits to being Webmaster World’s ‘Google Guy’.

17. His favorite search engine spider is Grub.

18. Matt is a big fan of Halloween and loves to wear costumes.

19. Matt Cutts is more famous than any other person at Google. More people know about him than Google’s founder, Lary Page.

20. Matt Cutts has an evil twin brother, Evil Matt Cutts 😉