[dannysullivan]

I get this view. But as my post explains, I'd quit writing about search. I was done. There wasn't going to be more criticism (or praise or whatever) from me because I'd retired from writing about search. I didn't have plans to go to Google when I retired. No one there even knew I was leaving. Which ... you or anyone can choose to believe or not, but that's how it is.

I was far from the only critic (or advocate) for Google or other search engines. There are plenty of others. New people, and with good views, continue to come into the space. The idea of "Google hired me to quiet me," again, while I get it, just wouldn't resolve that.

By the way, nor would some alternative idea that I somehow had secret details of spamming techniques make sense, either. Google had and still has an excellent spam team. They didn't need me to come in and somehow fill gaps.

What Google gained by me coming in, I hope, is someone that both tries to help people better understand how the search engine works from within the search quality team (that's where I work, in that team) and also bring back into that team advocacy and feedback from the outside world (which typically, I realize, isn't that clear to those people outside Google -- here's an example I shared of this last week when asked: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1720491595420856329 )