Matt Cutts & Daffodils

**grynge** · November 12th, 2010, 12:52 AM

While do a search for something Matt Cutts said for another thread, I found that Matt Cutts had sort of shown one of my sites on his blog lol
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/9-goog...e-iphone-tips/
He shows a daffodil image from a site I built for my uncle (it's the 3rd image down the allsortza one)

Pity there is no link to go with it but I thought it was cool anyway.

**JJMcClure** · November 12th, 2010, 5:28 AM

Cool, lol. Why don't you ask him for a link? He used your pic without asking, that's copyright infringement...

**Clinton** · November 12th, 2010, 7:15 AM

You want links? There are better ways. Sue Matt Cutts and get the media to pick the story up. You'll get plenty of links from all over the world.

**JJMcClure** · November 12th, 2010, 9:29 AM

Originally Posted by Clinton

You want links? There are better ways. Sue Matt Cutts and get the media to pick the story up. You'll get plenty of links from all over the world.

I like your thinking and this is an interesting link building question. Matt Cutts blog has over 223k links from over 6k seperate domains, most of which will be related to SEO or IM so would one link from his blog be worth more or less than say 50 links from news sites? I think I'd take the MC link.

**Clinton** · November 12th, 2010, 9:37 AM

I'd take 50 links, or even 5, from the top news sites over one from Matt Cutts any day.

That his IBLs are SEO and IM related may actually be a disadvantage to the large majority of us not in SEO or IM.

**JJMcClure** · November 12th, 2010, 9:59 AM

Originally Posted by Clinton

I'd take 50 links, or even 5, from the top news sites over one from Matt Cutts any day.

That his IBLs are SEO and IM related may actually be a disadvantage to the large majority of us not in SEO or IM.

I'd take one link from a massively authoratitive site over 50 from varied context time critical content sites anyday. News sites link out to a variety of sources all the time so their links won't have the same weight and within weeks your 50 news links would be buried deep inside the hierarchy of the news sites, the pages they're on wouldn't be as close to the main linked pages (diluting the benefit of all the sites that link to the news sites) and those links would devalue as time goes on.

The SEO/IM was my assumption btw. I haven't actually checked any of his IBLs, perhaps there'd be a bunch from news sites too who've run stories about Google. Matt Cutts doesn't get any more SERP authority from Google for being a Google employee but that credibility must have influenced who links to him, I bet almost every really authoratitive SEO/IM/Internet news site on the planet links to his blog. You'd lose that kind of authority for a few news links?

e.g. If you search google.co.uk for "SEO", the number one ranked page is a wikki page which mentions Cutts several times and Google these days is all about branding as well as links. He has brand recognition from the site that ranks number one for SEO. That's the kind of authority mentions his site will have that syndicated news sites can only dream of and that auithority will boost a ranking for any term all, it doesn't have to be SEO or Im related.

**Clinton** · November 12th, 2010, 10:34 AM

Articles on news sites get buried, yes. How is Matt Cutts' blog different? He keeps it on the homepage permanently?

Is there any site you know of that has got a massive SE boost from getting a link at the blog for the Cuttlets?

**JJMcClure** · November 12th, 2010, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by Clinton

Articles on news sites get buried, yes.

Don't get too sidetracked by that bit, it's the least important of the reasons why links from news sites probably aren't worth what a link from a massively authoratitive site would be worth.

Originally Posted by Clinton

Is there any site you know of that has got a massive SE boost from getting a link at the blog for the Cuttlets?

Now how could I possibly have access to that kind of information, maybe I could go find sites that he links to, then email them and ask them if they noticed a ranking boost.... maybe not, it's just a theoretical discussion about a site that by my understanding of SEO is about as authoratitive as a private one man band site could ever get, and yes, it's because he's the cutlett and a lot of people with very authoratitive sites themselves think that means enough to link to him. Our personal opinions of him are irrelevant.

As always, don't take my word for it, go ask someone on 'proper' SEO forum how they feel about authoratitive links vs relevant links. Generally multiple links from multiple domains is better than just one link from one domain but this is a good exception to that rule. IMO. Depends what the news sites are of course.

**Clinton** · November 12th, 2010, 12:24 PM

Our personal opinions of him are irrelevant.

I think he's a charming chap, very intelligent, personable and he tries to be helpful. But why are we talking about personal opinions?

I'd still rather have the news coverage, but I'll drop into a forum of SEOs sometime and sound them out on it.

Haven't seen the need to go to one of those for years!

**JJMcClure** · November 12th, 2010, 2:01 PM

Originally Posted by Clinton

I think he's a charming chap, very intelligent, personable and he tries to be helpful. But why are we talking about personal opinions?

No idea why. Personally I think he's a bit of a dick, in a nice way.

Originally Posted by Clinton

I'd still rather have the news coverage, but I'll drop into a forum of SEOs sometime and sound them out on it.

Haven't seen the need to go to one of those for years!

Do that and let me know what kind of responses you get, this discussion is common on SEO forums and my own opinion on links has changed over the last 18 months because of it.