Interview With Google's Adam Lasnik

Spotlight on Search - Interview with Google's Adam Lasnik Matt Cutts and Adam Lasnik. After having the chance to talk to Adam, I thought he and his job sounded pretty interesting and he agreed to do a short interview. This interview clarifies Adam's role with Google as well as some of the most common webmaster questions/issues, his thoughts on the common sense of site optimization (think about the user!), long but satisfying days at the Googleplex, the Google Webmaster Help Group, the increasingly important role of Google Base and his thoughts on SEO certification. Note: with the exception of one link to Matt Cutts' blog, all links were added by me. Tell us about how you became a Google employee. What was involved with getting "recruited" by Matt Cutts? I've been a fan of Google for quite some time, even writing up a "how to Google" tips article in early 2000 for a former employer's internal newsletter. Also, many of my friends have worked at Google since the early days, and I was impressed by what they shared about the corporate culture. Amazing amounts of trust, freedom, and goodwill. I was particularly intrigued by the idea of strengthening communications between Googlers and Google users, amongst groups of Googlers, and so on. As a happy coincidence, Matt and the Search Quality group had been increasingly interested in extending these sorts of conversations as well, and so you might say we sort of found each other. Matt's detailed the situation a bit more here: "Please explain the webmaster liaison work you do. What sorts of questions annoy you the most? (besides that one) What have been some of the more rewarding interactions? I think there's a misconception that my main role is "getting out there" meeting with Webmasters, giving answers, solving specific problems, and so on. While - as someone who was Webmastering even back in'95 - I do enjoy the external aspects of my job, I think the most powerful part of what I do is internal. I'd say about 20% of my job involves interacting with Webmasters, SEOs, geeks, and even non-geeks at conferences, online, and otherwise. The remaining 80% is where the talk is translated into action. I am blessed with colleagues who care deeply about search and also about Webmasters; some of them are pretty well-known in the Webmaster community (including Vanessa, and - of course - Matt). But countless others work behind the scenes the crawl folks, the Googlers working on indexing, and so on. I'm confident that I'm helping Webmasters most when I'm tackling both the urgent as well as important-but-long-term issues with my teammates, serving as both a Webmaster advocate and facilitator internally. As for what questions annoy me the most? There aren't any specific ones that I find particularly frustrating. Rather, I do occasionally grow weary with two types of questions:

1. Questions that are clearly answered in our much-improved Webmaster Help group, or questions that would also be likely answered via use of our What are some of the most common issues that you've heard from Webmasters in terms of problems with ranking on Google? What are some of the most common solutions? The two most common concerns we hear are:
• Hey, all or most of my pages aren't in your index! And
• My site's not ranking as high as I'd like or for the keywords it should show up for.
In the first case, the sites at issue tend to be relatively new, or have so few meaningful backlinks as to be practically invisible. In a few instances, the sites violate or have recently violated our Webmaster Guidelines. The solutions involve patience and/or responsible networking to garner at least a few good links. Or, when violations are an issue, then cleaning up the problem and filing a reinclusion request is the way to go. In the second case, ranking can quite often be improved via either making one's site more accessible / user-friendly (clearer titles, cleaner navigation) or - in a broader sense - by making the site more interesting or useful or entertaining to make for a better user experience. Lastly, I think our FAQ on creating a Google-friendly site in particular can address many Webmaster concerns and questions both in the initial stages of making a site and also in troubleshooting. The last time we talked, you mentioned that Can you describe some ideal applications of Google Base for web site owners? How about some that are not so obvious? I think Base is great for any individual or company that has a large amount of structured (and, perhaps often-changing) information that they'd like to share. Obvious (and currently present) data sets include real estate listings and recipes. I'd love to see some quirkier-but-still-useful applications, though. Maybe hiking trail information by city region, or broad sets of nutrition information of common foods? In the meantime, folks who want to get more familiar with Base can check out our Base quick facts and related info. Anyone who relies on search engines for their online marketing would love to spend time getting "inside" information from Google Engineers and those "in the know" about how Google ranks web pages and other media. Since that's unlikely, outside of Engineer availability at the annual Google Dance, what resources would you recommend for webmasters in terms of understanding search engines as a marketing tool and for learning about specific tactics? I'm going to have to give the anti-answer to this one :) . I think learning tactics, per se, is sort of self-defeating; I know *I* can't keep up with all the nuances of our algorithms because various teams are always updating them. Furthermore, if a particular tactic is likely to annoy or raise eyebrows for you or your customers, it's likely to be exactly the sort of thing that our engineers will add as a negative signal in our algorithms. Hence, in the end - as cliched as it might sound - it really IS best to think like a user. Along those lines do focus groups. I mean, even simple ones. Grab your dad. Your next door neighbor. Watch them navigate through your site, preferably on an older browser or slower computer, maybe even on dialup. It's amazing (albeit sometimes painful) what you can learn by just watching, not judging. One of our key engineers pointedly debates features and defaults in our products based upon what frustrates her Mom, and while quantitative data drives decisions at the end of the day, these examples often really help shape the way we view search quality. So, okay, maybe these things fall under the heading of common sense, and so for a more "insider" view of how we think at the Plex, I'd recommend participating in our You recently launched a Search Engine Marketing Certification program. SEMPO is launching While I understand the allure and value of that idea, I do think we're shying away from directly certifying either individual SEOs or SEO organizations. The market moves so fast, so frequently, that there's a significant danger of missing the mark failing to recognize an SEO company that's begun better focusing on user experiences or spotting (and delisting) an SEO that's sacrificed usability for dramatic "quick fixes." Specifically, we're concerned about the challenge of making sure that certified individuals or companies adhere to best practices on an ongoing basis. And - unlike with AdWords - there are no immediate quantitative measures that we or Webmasters can use to assess ROI or evaluate practices. AdWords is a more controlled and measurable environment. So I believe for now we're preferring to play a greater role in the background helping individuals and organizations via Webmaster Tools as well as our documentation and our help group and hoping that Webmasters can use these resources to gauge the trustworthiness and knowledgability of firms they might want to do business with in the search space. But - as with everything in this industry - nothing's set in stone. Thanks Adam! If you plan on attending the WebmasterWorld Pubcon conference Nov 14-17, be sure to visit Comments Tag: Add to Yahoo! My Web | Furl TopRank Online Marketing, specializing in organic SEO, blog marketing and online public relations. He's been cited as a search marketing expert by publications including U.S. News & World Report and The Economist and has implemented successful search marketing programs with top BtoB companies of all sizes. Odden shares his marketing expertise at

Suggest a Correction

Found an error or have a suggestion? Let us know and we'll review it.

Your Name *
Your Email *
Correction Details *
Submit Correction