Being in close contact with Google or the people that work at Google really does not benefit you (or me). The is just the simple truth - you just won't benefit from that.
There are these tweets going around that imply some SEO agencies are responding to prospects or customers saying "Our SEO experts are in close contact with Google..." Yea, so what, so am I? Does that mean they can press a button to make my rankings go higher or downgrade the rankings of my competitors? No - it does not.
Here are some of those tweets:
Getting lots of emails from the web spam team isn't all it's made out to be.
— 🐝 johnmu.csv (personal) 🐝 (@JohnMu) June 24, 2022
Just don't sneak up on me from behind.
— 🐝 johnmu.csv (personal) 🐝 (@JohnMu) June 24, 2022
If you click through, you can dig into the responses from the SEO community.
Just because someone has a photo with Larry Page, Sundar Pichai, Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan, Gary Illyes, John Mueller, etc - it doesn't mean they have special ranking powers in Google.
In fact, if you have sustained long professional relationships with any Googler who works in Google Search, that is because you have not crossed the line and pushed them for any favors - favors that they cannot act on anyway.
Forum discussion at Twitter.