My head is still spinning from being at Google, so I decided to take a quick blog break.
I’ve been really bad about posting my flying adventures recently. Thanks to everyone who nagged me about this via email in the last few weeks. Clearly, I’ve been busy.
On the glider front, I’ve been taking advantage of the good post-frontal days we’ve had in the last few months, logging about 12 hours over 4 flights. One of those was in the DG-1000 and the rest were in my 304C.
I had forgotten how much fun my own glider is to fly!
One the single engine front, I’ve been flying less due to the increase in glider flying. However, I’ve managed to sneak a few flights in. But the big news it that I’m buying a plane!
Well, half a plane. I have a partner in this deal, so we’ll both be co-owners of the 1969 Citabria 7KCAB N5156X. It currently lives just outside of Houston, Texas, so we need to fly down and fetch it sometime soon. Flying it back is sure to be an adventure.
BTW, I love how Google identifies aircraft N numbers.
That reminds me. Have you looked at the Advanced Search pages? There’s so much cool stuff that Google has built-in. Check it out.
Google rocks.
So, how’s the grass growing on your side of the world?
How did you find your plane?
I just looked at the price on a few Citrabrias and was surprised at the cost, which I thought would be much higher. I spoze it adds up fast though with the maintenance, hangar fees, fuel, etc.
Oh, there are a few weeds here and there, but not bad overall.
“This is the plane I’ll soon own half of.”
Make sure you get the half with the engine in it!
This writing style is 100% from Matt.
Just changing the name is not enough.
Now I’m getting nostalgic – you glide? I’ve spent a lot of time in gliding camps in Germany and Switzerland, and have flown from clubs in Denmark and Luxembourg. I really felt free in a glider – circling upwards with a few birds as companions. Those were good times.
Yo’ Matt, can you cut and paste your .htaccess file code in here for wordpress? :0
I want to make all my urls for pages and posts all end in / and am having a really hard time, the permalinks are working fine but I am getting a 404 page not found which makes me believe .htaccess is not correct.
Anyone else?
Thanks…
Sounds liek your having alot of fun but me personaly I can not stand flyinh just got back from Orlando from Spring Break and wsa bumpy ride all the way back and has clinging to my seat for dear life it seems half the trip. Glad to hear anyone doing what they but might I reccomend a safer hobby like gardening or tennis would hate to loose the Google man to bad weather!
I’m just curious as to what Matt Cutts’ blot is going to be.
For those who don’t know what I’m referring to, click Zawodny’s signature link.
Adam, I hate you.. I was just going to post about that.. then I read your comment.
Adam,
“I’m just curious as to what Matt Cutts’ blot is going to be.”
Its gonna be:
The Power of Linking Without Blinking 😀
It’s nice to see that others in SEO have the flying bug. I hope that you and Jeremy enjoy 56x-ray. Citabrias (airbatic spelled backwards) are really fun aircraft.
Hey Jeremy,
Your URI is set to ye old (er Matt’s) /blot directory above…humored and eager visitors are probably clicking away at it to see if you slide in a few links to that other blog… more confused visitors will just be more confused. 🙂
First I thought it is a April fools joke that you guys are playing. Now I’m starting to believe that it is real and not a joke. And even changing the blogs also starting to make sense (weird but not weirder than you guys switching companies)
But let me ask you this : Why didn’t you guys change the DNS or added a rewrite rule to Apache so that http://www.mattcutts.com/blog goes to jeremy.zawodny.com/blog and other way around to keep the site look and feel same? I understand you enjoy making your readers crossed-eye but soon no one will be able to read you if we go blind 🙂
Congrats Jeremy, google would be more colorful with your presence…
Your guys have missed out a spouse swap in the deal!
This is an April fools joke, I assume…
Aren’t you supposed to confess by now?
Alright Jeremy, let’s supose it’s not an april joke. How much fun is it writing the blog named Matt Cutts? 😛
You see, the biggest trouble with seeing what’s now changed within “advanced search”, is that I don’t remember anymore how it was before. It’s because I never needed to use advanced search… The standard search with a single search box works just fine for me. This new stuff built in, seems to be alright and very clean though.
Hi Jeremy & Matt,
Nice that you both inter-changed the jobs! Why you both guys dont start all-new Search engine something called “gooya.com” or “yagoo.com” instead being at G & Y!
Ah yes, gliding is great. I miss it. I used to live in Calistoga and we would get “free” glides from the guide for bringing in customers.
Hey, there are Gliders in the SEO-Scene!
I am from Bolzano, Italy. I fly the Twin and the DG 300 here in the Alps. If someone would join me for some Flight together, that would be great!
Good morning Matt
C’mon.. we have much to discuss. No more Yahoo.. 🙂
Hi Matt,
I’ve got an urgent question: where can i file spamreports for the Dutch domain that get looked at? 🙂
he won’t be back any time soon. I guess the food at Y! wasn’t that good 😉
Seriously, shouldn’t the joke be over by now? This is getting kind of old. Where’s the Sensei of Mattitude?
I think that Matt has gone on vacation – or maybe he’s reeling from the warm welcomes that were aimed at Jeremy 🙂
Jeremy had said on his blog that it had been an april fool and that he never left yahoo.
Matt seem to like seeing people dying to know.
Guys,
Did a google for the N number like yoiu said and found an accident report for the aircraft:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001214X44613&key=1
Gheesh, April fools and then a big boring silence, something must be broken at the plex. 😉
I think Matt’s gone supplemental.
Yeah, or his pages got the dreaded page rank.
>> dying to know.
Spooky – most of you are too young to remember the Beatles’ Paul McControversies, but if you play Jeremy Zawodny’s RSS feed backwards he says “I …. buried …. Inigo Montoya”
Hi Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatt 😀
Long time no post.
Would you be kind to confirm that PR update is taking place at the moment.
Thank.
It looks more as Google is inserting PR values for pages that has been PR less.
But then, first we need a MC update…
You definitely got me Matt,
I just saw this today and about fell off my chair! After I picked my jaw up off the ground I read the comments. That wasn’t very nice of you … but it was definitely a good one! 🙂
I’ve always been the gullible type! Sigh.
Maybe it wasn’t an April fools joke – maybe Jeremy hijacked this blog and did the whole thing himself, and now Matt can’t get back in 🙁
Maybe the powers that be at Google didn’t see the funny side and Matt got fired?
or
Google was so overwhelmed with spam reports that he is lending a hand sifting through them and doesn’t have time to post?
Anyone else have a theory?
Matt has been abducted by Yahoo and is being forced to get thier search results relevant before they release him.
Valentine,
“Anyone else have a theory?”
Yes. Matt is visiting his parents in Kentuky. He also talked about purchasing blinking green neons while he is there 😀
OK, jokes over.
Matt, time to come back.
Matt’s manually removing every blackhat SEO and their corresponding sites from the Google SERPs. That has to be it. (At least it would be cool if it were.)
I think Matt is manually reviewing every listing for v7ndotcom elursrebmem to make sure he knows who all the spammers are.
After all, v7ndotcom elursrebmem is a “Come and get it!” call to spammers. Why not take advantage of their audacity and track them down, one by one.
Maybe John Scott is on Google’s payroll, serving as an industrial spy, enticing the black hats to come out with the v7ndotcom elursrebmem contest so that Google can finally track them all down and nuke them.
Frankly, I’m not entirely sure we can trust Matt to be our advocate at Google any longer. He may actually be putting their interests first, since he is a stockholder.
Michael the V7Ndotcom elursrebmem contest is NOT a call only to spammers – it’s a reasonable and fascinating experimental approach to figuring out how ranking works. I’m restraining myself from saying how PISSED OFF I get when people suggest that simply trying to figure out Google’s definition of “relevancy” is the province of cheats and liars which it’s NOT. I have huge respect for Matt and his spam team, and for the fact they must deal with a lot of crap, but I’m not going to ignore information about ranking or not run any experiments. I’m think Matt would agree that ranking experiments that stay within the Google webmaster guidelines are a reasonable use of electrons. V7N as a *concept* is within the guidelines though I’m sure some people are using spammy methods to rank.
within the guidelines?
what about guideline number 3:
how is a page that ranks for a nonsense term useful or information rich?
Doesn’t information have to involve real words?
” I’m restraining myself from saying how PISSED OFF I get when people suggest that simply trying to figure out Google’s definition of “relevancy” is the province of cheats and liars which it’s NOT.”
Then you have no reason to be pissed off at me. I wonder how you feel about people putting words into other people’s mouths, though, and deliberately misrepresenting and misconstruing what those other people say.
Nonetheless, the v7ndotcom contest reveals nothing about relevancy, and is little more than a call to spammers to have some fun and earn some money. Legitimate people may have gotten involved in it, but that doesn’t change the fact that the results have been spammed to death (with 6 milllion+ raw hits).
A much more reliable SEO contest would not use the cattle call approach. It would require independent judging by panels and evaluation of live projects (with full non-disclosure agreements to ensure contestants’ contracts were not violated or compromised).
Michael –
1. I apologize. I didn’t mean YOU piss me off, rather the idea in general, but it did look attack-like from my response and that was bad by me.
2. I also agree with you that V7dotcom is probably inferior to the type of study you suggest. Interesting though that the V7 listings do appear to be propagating much like “normal” ones. Google prefers to avoid manual intervention and I’m guessing they’ll avoid it here as well.
Ryan – Maybe I’m splitting hairs a bit but you are doing what people should NOT do and that’s starting to accept Google’s most restrictive interpretation of their rules as the “correct” one. In the traditions of early Google I say they/we should use less restrictive interpretations of the guidelines. But even with restrictive use I’d say that the V7 contest does meet the criteria you cite above as follows:
Useful – V7 sites are useful to many both as experiments and as a big SEO news item.
Info rich – look at all the listings! Most have LOTS of relevant, real information about the contest. Those that do not don’t rank well. hmmmmmm
Accurately describe your content: Again, most do this while those like the “hotel” site (hi DaveN) create a fiction and make it clear it’s a fiction.
The more I watch the contest the more convinced I am it’s fun, educational, and legitimate. I wish Matt would weigh in but I think he can’t cuz it’s an “Algorithmic item”.
Maybe you should write a post and put it on your and jeremy’s blog at the same time and see which one will be marked as original by Yahoo/Google 🙂
Afraid of results ?????
PS : If you’re gonna do it without manual changes in ranks please 🙂
Jeremy, you may remember me as the former owner of http://www.jeremy.com which you used to contact me about, in the fond hope of buying it.
Interesting that you’re involved in aviation. I too. Check out the http://www.happiest-flying.blogspot.com blog that I’m stumbling through. And, if you’re ever in Seattle, I’d be happy to take you flying in a Diamond 20, 40, 42 or a Columbia 400 if you’d like, though we’d probably have to throw some cash at the flight school. But, it would be well below market rate…..
Regards,
Where’s matt?