Interview With Google's Adam Lasnik

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: "Better Conversations"

So there's not much more for me to add. But about eight months later, I can say that it's been a great fit and I'm really pleased things worked out the way they did.

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 Central, via a quick search of our Webmaster Help group, or questions that would also be likely answered via use of our Webmaster Tools. There's no such thing as a stupid question, IMHO, but lazy questions… well, that's a different story.

2. Accusatory "questions." I suppose I need to get some thicker skin, but it stings when people imply that we either don't care or - worse - that a relationship between Webmasters and Google must inherently be adversarial. Every time I've spoken with Larry Page and Marissa Mayer they've made it unequivocally clear that being mindful of Webmaster concerns is something resonating not just in Search Quality, but from the very top of Google.

And thankfully, most of my interactions - with Googlers and Webmasters - have been decidedly positive. I got some incredible insights when I visited my colleagues in Dublin, Ireland (our European headquarters) as well as various Webmasters / Google users throughout Europe, all of whom offered thoughtfully global perspectives on search. Closer to home, I've especially enjoyed chatting with Webmasters and IT folks from non-profit organizations; these are people who often lack the resources to delve into the world of SEO, can't even afford a week to schmooze at a conference. It's made me think about how we (Google and all of us passionate about search) can most scalably and responsibly spread knowledge, and broadly share best search and user-experience practices in this area.

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