I remember the first time I met Matt when he was not onstage. It was during a game of Werewolf back in the early days of Pubcon. If you were ever at those games, you will remember that the cards used has famous SEOs on them. That day Matt was Danny and Danny was Matt. We had a blast and I was amazed how accessible the main representative from Google was - noting I was pretty new to the industry.

However, it was not until we were walking out to the parking lot one night and having a quick exchange about Matt getting away to his hotel from the crowd following him that I would say he could pick me out of a crowd.

After that I always got a hello and a hug and if I had a particularly nasty client issue, like say one time when a client was suffering from proxy jacking, he always gave me the time to talk to him one-on-one.

Matt got a lot of flack from people as someone in his role does, but I always appreciated how incredibly helpful and accurate he was if you listened to the words he spoke, or more specifically the ones he did not.

Whenever I saw Matt in a large group of people I thought he should give lessons on how to handle speaking to crowds when you have to be very precise in your word choice. He was so brilliant at that. He might have 100 people around him, but always took the time to answer questions, thoughtfully and to the best of his ability.

In the days of very little update information from Google, I miss how much Matt made sure we knew what was happening with our websites and what we could expect to happen in the future. There were always warnings and explanations.

I also do think Matt appreciated what the SEO industry does to help Google and I always appreciated that he always tried to inform us the best he could, given the restraints of where he worked and what he represented.

I am currently doing presentations on Google Algo updates and I have a section that pays homage to the days when Matt was our guide to all that was Google and SEO. No negatives towards those who took his place, but it felt like the industry lost some of its flavor when Matt left the industry. Though I know what he is doing now is so very important, I used to work on the sites he is fixing. I do still miss his voice in our industry.

Matt felt like a friend, not just a person at Google. I will always be thankful for his voice, his help, his guidance, and his time.

I know right now is one of the hardest times in his life. I hope he knows how many of us are thinking about him and holding him in our hearts.