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Matt Cutts | |
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 Cutts in 2008 | |
| Born | Matthew Cutts 1972 or 1973 (age 51–52)[1] |
| Alma mater |
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| Occupation | Programmer |
| Known for | SafeSearch, Google's family filter, Webspam Team |
| Spouse | [2] |
| Administrator of theUnited States Digital Service | |
| In office 2016 – April 2021 | |
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Mikey Dickerson |
| Succeeded by | Mina Hsiang |
Matthew Cutts (born 1972 or 1973)[1] is an Americansoftware engineer. Cutts is the former Administrator of theUnited States Digital Service.[3] He was first appointed as acting administrator, to later be confirmed as full administrator in October 2018.[4] Cutts previously worked with Google as part of the search quality team onsearch engine optimization issues.[5][6] He is the former head of theweb spam team atGoogle.[7]
Cutts completed his high school career inMorehead, Kentucky atRowan County Senior High School.[8] He received a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics from theUniversity of Kentucky in 1995.[9][10] He went on to receive aMaster of Science degree from theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998.[11]
Cutts started his career insearch when working on hisPh.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In January 2000, Cutts joined Google as a software engineer.[5] At 2007 PubCon, Cutts stated that his field of study wascomputer science; he then moved into the field ofinformation retrieval and search engines after taking two outside classes from the university'sInformation and Library Science department.[12] 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.[5][13] 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.[14]
Cutts is one of the co-inventors listed upon a Googlepatent related to search engines and web spam.[15]
In 2006,The Wall Street Journal said "Cutts is to search results whatAlan Greenspan was to interest rates".[16]
In November 2010, Cutts started a contest challenging developers to makeMicrosoft Kinect more compatible with theLinux operating system. At the time, Microsoft had stated that the use of Kinect with devices other than theXbox 360 was not supported by them.[17]
Cutts has given advice and made statements on help related to the use of the Google search engine and related issues.[18]
In January 2012, on the news that Google had violated its own quality guidelines, Cutts defended the downgradedPageRank of theGoogle Chrome homepage results, noting that it was not given special dispensation.[19][20]
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.[21] Upon joiningGoogle, 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.[22]
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.[23]
In January 2017, Cutts announced that he would be leaving Google to join theUS Digital Service.[22] 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.[24]
Matt Cutts, the 38-year-old
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.
Authority control databases: Academics |
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