Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz, is much loved by many in the SEM space, and with that, disliked by some as well (trust me, I know). But there have been some chatter throughout the industry for years and years that Googlers, including folks in search quality, are upset and not happy with some of the advice and tidbits Rand gives in his presentation.
This is the first time I found a Googler publicly show a sign of being upset by something Rand said in a presentation and since it is public and out there, I figured I'd share it.
Matt Cutts, who as you know, was very involved in search at Google and has known Rand since before his yellow shoes, commented on a statement he made that was tweeted, showing his aggravation of what Rand said.
Here is a screen shot of the post on Twitter:
You can clearly see here, how Matt Cutts, who knows a bit about how the Google algorithm works and how machine learning is baked into that, is clearly upset with Rand's statement here. As if he is upset Rand is saying things that are not true, making people think they are.
Again, this has been the chatter in the industry for a while but I have never seen Google, especially Matt Cutts, publicly show distaste in Rand's comments before.
That is not to say that Rand and Moz don't provide overall awesome value for the industry, they do. But sometimes they step a bit too far, which history has shown here and there.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: Rand is saying he did not say what is quoted above, but that is not the point anyway of this article. Anyway, see the comment here below for Rand's response.
Update 2: I think people also need to read this to get more insight.