I have a lot of memories of Matt especially in the early years of SEO. I can remember how he went from relatively low-key Google employee that could easily walk down a hallway without getting recognized to someone who had to time his entry as not to get too overwhelmed by people surrounding him asking him questions after a conference session. It always gave a good chuckle, seeing him surrounded within minutes of appearing. Matt helped me quite a few times over the years for clients and for some my own properties. I was so very thankful for the help. I always gave him a rather wide berth and never wanted to impose on him to much because he seemed overwhelmed a lot of the time.

I do have a particular fond memory of Matt. In 2006 at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York. I was liveblogging all the sessions with Barry Schwartz for Search Engine Roundtable. We were covering the sessions in almost real-time, transcribing what was said and then quickly posting it to SER. Some had suggested we arrange a dinner one night while everyone was in town. It was a secret dinner of sorts. A few people were invited and we made a reservation at the Prime Grill in Manhattan. The guest list was pretty epic for the time. Matt Cutts, Barry Schwartz, myself (Ben Pfeiffer), Patrick Gavin (Text Link Ads), Jim Lanzone (CEO of Ask.com), search algorithm scientist (can't remember his name) and a successful web publisher. At the dinner you had a Google employee, a founder of Text Link Ads (paid linking company), CEO of a rival search engine, two seasoned SEO's and reporters (myself and Barry). Everyone had a stake in the game in some way. I remember Jim telling us some funny stories about how many houses Barry Diller had and tales of how the super rich lived. I remember Patrick was particularly nervous as he was seated right next to Matt. Matt was the head of Google Webspam and he was having dinner with the founder of one of the largest paid linking companies at the time. I was nervous because I didn't want Matt to kill any websites I had that might or might not have used said Text Link Ads to improve rankings for clients. Barry was nervous but also very happy I think because of all the interesting people we got to assemble together. Despite all that, the dinner was fantastic, conversations were lively and fun. We didn't really even talk about search that much, instead we just enjoyed getting to know everyone more personally. Unfortunately no Google secrets were revealed and everyone got to keep their jobs. I was always very impressed how Matt was so humble and willing to engage with all types of people. It was super cool having dinner with him. It was one of my fondest memories of that time and glad it happened. Thank you Matt for all the years serving the community.