Matt had a profound influence on my career in SEO. When I first got into playing with SEO, I hadn't really begun to internalize the whole black hat / white hat thing, and I made some mistakes. I.e., we did some things that were effective in making more money on affiliate lead gen sites we were running at the time (this was in a company I was running together with friends of mine - not Stone Temple). But, we got one site that was really important to us banned by Google.

I starting going out on the conference circuit, and every time Matt spoke, I'd be one of the people who spoke to him afterwards. He was unfailingly friendly and open. He made it easy for me to focus on doing the right things with the site, and helped me understand what that was. Eventually, we got the site back in the index, and were successful with it again.

Seeing him speak during those days, and his interactions with me really influenced the way I thought (and think) about SEO, shaping the way that Stone Temple operates today.

I will always be grateful. Thanks Matt!