Last night, Google had an event for webmasters, SEOs and SEMs called the Google Dance. It was an event they ran annually and then stopped doing for some time until last year and has now done again, a second time in a row.
Last year, I said this dance was about webmaster relations, it was an olive branch shown by Google to webmasters saying, we care about you. The event this year was pretty much the same thing.
Top Google engineers were at the Google Dance talking to ordinary webmasters, agencies and even black hatters - just like the old days. We had people as high as Paul Haahr chatting it up with ordinary webmasters. This year, we even had John Mueller at the event, with Gary Illyes, Maryia Movea and Nathan Johns. Great to see all of them together. I did not see Brian White and some other folks from the Google web spam team but I wasn't there all night. Lastly, Matt Cutts did not make a surprise appearance, but I don't think anyone expected it this year.
Here are some tweets from the event:
Thanks @methode @NathanJohns & @google for another great Google Dance. Love SEOs & SEMs get to see the place so central to what they do #SMX pic.twitter.com/EX5JXTXudW
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 23, 2017
I tried to get @methode and @JohnMu to dance at the Google Dance but they wouldn't take the bait 🎣 pic.twitter.com/o6lyVyPRRy
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) March 23, 2017
Google Dance dance dance baby #SMX pic.twitter.com/HBpvbiODTo
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 23, 2017
The #GoogleDance is one happenin' event. 👯 #SMX pic.twitter.com/WcR0VuvbKv
— Search Engine Land (@sengineland) March 23, 2017
@dannysullivan @methode I'm 40 minutes north on a plane, but my heart is dancing with you.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) March 23, 2017
This year's Google Dance shirt #smx pic.twitter.com/IoaT3odMTu
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 23, 2017
What a great #GoogleDance night with amazing ladies 🙌😘☝️ pic.twitter.com/0fO21qVXXU
— Aleyda Solís (@aleyda) March 23, 2017
Thanks @methode @dannysullivan 4 photo op at Google Dance #smx pic.twitter.com/F6UT9zQKb7
— Elliott Ng (@elliottng) March 23, 2017
If you were at the Google Dance and you lost something on the campus, please look for it in our lost & found room in the LMK5 building! pic.twitter.com/g91AqMA7gJ
— Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) March 23, 2017
@mattcutts memories! Shut down google dance with you approximately here. Hope you're well! pic.twitter.com/b0m5ThkfpS
— Ashley (@BermanHale) March 23, 2017
It is hard to put into words how impactful an event like this is on the webmaster and SEO community. Google spends a lot of time, money and resources putting this together and while most webmasters and SEOs are not in attendance, there is a group of devoted that come and are invited to the GooglePlex once a year to eat, drink, talk and dance.
Most of all, Googlers are actively reaching out, asking the community at this event, how they can do better for the community, their clients and as a search engine. I've heard Googlers repeatedly say to webmasters last night, "we care."
Most of my take aways from last year would be duplicate content on this story if I repeated them, so I am linking to it instead.
Thanks Google!
Forum discussion at tweets above.
