Matt Cutts Google AutoSEO April Fools Prank Gets Over 3,000 Beta Requests

Apr 6, 2015 - 7:48 am 13 by
Filed Under Search News

On April Fools, Matt Cutts, the on leave head of Google's search quality team, announced a new spam tool named AutoSEO. He said you can request to be part of a limited beta and provided this form to fill out. Here is a picture of the form:

AutoSEO Form

Over 3,000 people requested a beta invite to Matt's fake AutoSEO tool. That is pretty impressive for a real tool, let alone an April Fools prank.

Jennifer Slegg asked Matt and he responded a few days later saying on Twitter:

I have to be honest, I filled it out, but only because I thought the April Fools prank would be more elaborate. I thought that either immediately after I filled it out or hours later, I would get some sort of follow up April Fools prank. Nope, nothing yet. Who knows, maybe it will work itself into a prank for April Fools 2016?

But anyway, it is pretty impressive to get 3,000 beta requests for fake software, let alone real software.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: September 16, 2025

Sep 16, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

New (But Old) Google Search Console Achievements

Sep 16, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

What Is Google Question Fringe Score

Sep 16, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Ads

Bing Image Search With Ads Mixed Into The Organic Results

Sep 16, 2025 - 7:31 am
Bing Search

Bing Testing Sticky Search Bar Header

Sep 16, 2025 - 7:21 am
Google News

Rolling Stone Publisher (Penske) Sued Google Over AI Overviews

Sep 16, 2025 - 7:11 am
 
Previous Story: Google Whacky Lighting