Google’s Matt Cutts is a Black Hat. A true Story.

It’s 7 o’clock and I’m having dinner with my friend Ed on the 27th floor steakhouse of Binion’s Casino on Freemont Street. The prime rib is excellent, and every other person is wearing a cowboy hat or ironed jeans. Through the windows of the restaurant we see the flickering lights of the city below. This is Las Vegas baby, anything can and will happen.

Dinner ends and I catch a cab to SEOmoz’s Werewolf party. It’s the second day of Pubcon and the first social gathering for me. I’m new to the SEO conference circuit but not the industry. This gathering will be a good chance to rub some elbows with some big names in the biz and get the real scoop.

I arrive at the convention center to catch the end of the “Meet the Google Engineers” soiree. The room is filled with people chatting with engineers while viewing big flat screen monitors with the latest Google products on them. I notice that everyone has cool Google drink cups in their hands, a souvenir, so I make my way to the bar.

The cocktails are free, and I see the tip jar with just a couple singles in it. I toss in a five and tell the bartender to keep up the good work. The bartender lifts his head and smiles brightly at me. He proceeds to pour what seems to be half a bottle of Jack Daniels into my cup, and splashes a bit of Coke on the top. Wow, I thought to myself. I was not expecting that. This is turning out to be quite a night. Anything could happen.

I do a lap around the room, exit, and arrive next door at the SEOmoz Werewolf party. The room is filled with big rectangular tables, each with about 12 chairs, and black and white M&Ms scatted about the tabletops. People fill in, are seated and Rand Fishkin begins to tell us how to play the game.

How Werewolf, the SEO game is played
Werewolf is a card game. This is the concept. Each deck of cards has faces of search engine optimization professionals on it. Some are white hats, those that are good and can do no wrong according to the search engines. And a few are labeled as black hats, the term given to someone who regularly bends the rules of the search engines and may receive penalties for their bad intensions.

Once everyone gets a card the game begins. Each player puts their head down (as not to see anyone) and beats their hands on the table. The designated moderator of the game then chimes in. “Black hats, wake up.” If you where given a black hat card you team up with the other black hats and pick a innocent victim to eject from the game. Heads down again.

The moderator then asks for the player with the Danny Sullivan card to awake. This player can absolve anyone that was accused of being black hat. A get out of jail free card, so to speak. Then the player with the Matt Cutts card awakes. Matt Cutts can ask about anyone’s loyalty. He knows who is white hat and who is black hat.Once all is said and done, everyone awakes. Now is the chance for the accused to rebuttal and convince everyone that they should not leave the game. And it goes from there until either the black or white hats are left.

The party begins to get interesting
The game is a hoot. Everyone is getting into it, so much that there is a tournament of champions. I find myself at the champion’s table. By this time my cocktail is long gone, and people are cutting loose. I’m at the who’s who table of SEOs playing a loud obnoxious game of cards and I love it.

To my left is the one and only Matt Cutts of Google, a pretty big elbow to rub in the search space. I plan to play it cool, but before I know it the cards are dealt and I get the Matt Cutts card. That’s funny, I thought to myself, what are the odds?

As the game continues, I am able to ask if anyone at the table is a black or white hat. After all, the holder of the Matt Cutts card has this power. I signal Rand, who is moderating the game, and ask if Matt is a black hat. He replies with a big nod, yes. Oh, the irony is tickling me and I can feel the Google cocktail rumble in my stomach. What kind of sign is this?

All heads come up and a player three chairs down is accused of being a black hat. I’m safe, but not for long. Out of the blue the real Matt Cutts begins telling the table he is Danny Sullivan, and that he should not go out? It starts to get a little blurry here, because I know that Matt Cutts can’t be Danny Sullivan (very white hat) because I was dealt the Matt Cutts card and found out he was really and black hat, and thus was lying.

This is when I learned a big lesson.
Nobody will ever believe Matt Cutts is a black hat. (Game or no game) Or could do any wrong, for that matter. He’s too pure. He does not drink; he is Google’s anti-spam guy, and he like cats. I should have trusted to my intuition, but it was that Google drink bomb that had me blurting out, “He’s a black hat, He can’t be Danny Sullivan, I’m the real Matt Cutts.”

As everyone turned to me with faces of disbelief, I began to wonder if this was all a set up? Did Matt know the bartender that poured me the stiff drink? Do all the Googlers roll together? Did he somehow plan to give me his card? Does he really know all that happens, everywhere, not just with Google?

Needless to say, nobody believed me when I tried to plead that I was the real Matt Cutts. They all just pointed and threw me out of the game, while Matt just sat beside me and smiled.

Was this a set up? Does Matt Cutts really have that much power? Is he some sort of super hero? I guess I’ll never know, but at least I have this story. Cheers Matt, thanks for being a good sport and signing the card for proof. Until we play again, I’ll be sleeping with one eye open.

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