№ 09 · Industry & Google Insiders
Danny Sullivan
Public Search Liaison at Google
He wrote the industry's history, then went to work for the subject.
Danny Sullivan founded Search Engine Watch in 1997 and Search Engine Land in 2006. For two decades, his reporting was effectively how the search marketing industry understood itself. In 2017 he joined Google as Public Search Liaison.
Dossier
- Role
- Public Search Liaison at Google
- Known for
- Founded the trade press, then joined Google
- Active since
- 1996
- Based
- United States
- Organisation
- Disciplines
- Search CommunicationsIndustry HistoryJournalism
- Notable work
- Search Engine WatchSearch Engine LandGoogle
Before Google
Sullivan is regularly described as the father of the search engine marketing industry, which is unusual praise for a journalist rather than a practitioner. It reflects the fact that he was documenting and naming the field while it was still forming — and that the conferences he helped build became where the industry met.
The liaison role
The job runs in two directions. Outward, he explains ranking systems, quality guidelines and product launches in language site owners can act on. Inward, he carries feedback from publishers and SEOs into the Search organisation.
For anyone tracking what Google actually says versus what the industry infers, his posts and the Search Central blog are the primary sources.