I surprised John Mueller (@JohnMu) as he was starting a Google webmaster help video and took over the video and turned it into a vlog and video interview about John Mueller. John Mueller is a Webmaster Trends Analysts at Google Switzerland and is incredibly well known for his support for the SEO and webmaster community both on Twitter, the forums, blog posts and probably most so on the Google Webmaster YouTube channel.
I decided to ask him mostly non-SEO related questions because John spends almost all his time answering SEO questions all day long anyway.
I first asked about his first job, which was amazing. He started his own company in high school, like I did, built software and then left that company in good hands when Google recruited him to become a Webmaster Trends Analysts. This was a fascinating conversation, in my opinion.
We then talked about the old days when he was part of the SEO and webmaster community. Specifically the forums, the Cre8asite Forums, where Ammon Johns (@ammon_johns) would give advice. He still thinks about his advice till this day.
John then moved over to Google to help with Webmaster Trends team, which was really the Webmaster Tools team and they were then based in Seattle. I asked him who interviewed him and how that went.
The biggest thing that surprised him about Google was that the company was not as hierarchical as he thought. He said it felt like working in a small company.
John then explained why he does he job and puts so much effort into the job. He even works on holidays and days off. He said it doesn't get any easier to hear stories about businesses being negatively impacted by Google search by an algorithmic update or manual action.
Then we play a short but fun game with Google auto-suggestions, I hope you enjoy that bit.
Here is the video:
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Forum discussion at YouTube.
