In a move that comes as a surprise to many, Google has decided to reinforce Performics, a company that came with the Doubleclick Acquisition, by transferring long time search quality lead Matt Cutts into a role with the search engine optimization firm. This immediately strengthens the perceived value of working with Performics, since Matt is obviously very familiar with the Google algorithm, and has had insight into the Yahoo system during his brief stint with Yahoo last year.
Matt will head up the SEO team at Performics, which will undoubtedly operate strictly within the search engine-approved guidelines for ethical optimization tactics. In December of 2007, Matt Cutts and his team changed the Google Help Document about SEO slightly. This caused some including Tamar “Scoop” Weinberg at Search Engine Roundtable to openly wonder if these changes had anything to do with the Performics Acquisition. Apparently, this transfer may have been in planning for some time.
As of press time, Mr. Cutts was unavailable for comment. His personal press attaché, Ozzie Houndslayer, did confirm that Matt would be moving over to Performics, but would not comment on the allegation that Performics would be listed as a primary recommended SEO in the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Fact: Google is now selling SEO services through Performics. An investigative team recently contacted Performics directly and was told that Performics was unable to offer SEO services to anyone not spending over $1Million U.S. per year with Google AdSense. This seems to be strong evidence that there is in fact a correlation between Paid Search spending and organic rankings, as long suspected . Search Engine maven Danny Sullivan is one of many who have officially suggested that Google should divest itself from Performics. The transfer of Matt Cutts is obviously a sign that this discussion is far from being over.