from the using-their-keywords dept.
Google senior vice president Amit Singhal, one of the executives heading up the company’s search-engine operations, sat down with Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist for Apple and author, at one of this year’s SXSW keynotes in Austin, TX. ‘Our dream is for search to become the “Star Trek” computer, and that’s what we’re building today,’ Singhal said. But he seemed reluctant to share much about his company on a more tactical level, parrying Kawasaki’s queries about everything from the amount of code in Google’s search platform to recent cyber-attacks on the company’s systems. But the two did have an interesting back-and-forth about SEO. ‘We at Google have time and time again said—and seen it happen—that if you build high-quality content that adds value, and your readers and your users seek you out, then you don’t need to worry about anything else,’ Singhal said. ‘If people want that content, your site will automatically work you could make a bunch of SEO mistakes and it wouldn’t hurt.’ When Kawasaki followed up by asking, ‘Is SEO bull****?’ Singhal replied: ‘That would be like saying marketing is bull****.’ That drew a laugh from the audience—and maybe some gritted teeth from people who position themselves as SEO experts. The two talked about much more with regard to Google’s future plans.
