Matt Cutts achieved a celebrity-like status within the SEO community being one of the first 100 employees at Google and through his position as Head of Search Quality. During this time, he maintained a love-hate relationship with SEO engineers as it seemed he was directly pulling the strings of Google’s algorithm – often the public face of updates and changes.
Many people may not know that Matt Cutts has been on leave from Google since 2014 and has been working with the US Digital Service for the last 2 years. He was replaced as Head of Search Quality in 2015 by an unknown individual but has remained active in the search community through his personal blog.
Matt Cutts’ official resignation was as of 31st December 2016 and he intends to stay on with US Digital Service as director of engineering for the USDS. What was originally intended as a short sabbatical has had a profound impact on Matt’s career – good luck to him!