One or more people are going around impersonating Google’s head of web spam (and now “Distinguished Engineer”) Matt Cutts, leaving comments on various articles on the web. It’s been going on for a while.
Usually, if you pay close enough attention, you can spot the fakes, but sometimes they can be deceiving.
We’ve had a fake Matt Cutts leaving a bunch of comments here on WebProNews lately. We delete them as we spot them, but sometimes they still surface, so beware of what you’re reading. Of course, the impostor(s) hasn’t been sticking to WebProNews only. Here are a couple of tweets from Cutts the other day:
@mattcutts
Matt Cutts@sarahcuda another fake comment to report. I didn’t comment on http://t.co/zqzaxxf6 . http://t.co/q5CYMOLp is fake. Any way to delete it?
2 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto
@mattcutts
Matt Cutts@sarahcuda no worries–thanks for taking care of it. “Pretending to be Matt Cutts” would be a boring/lame game; surprised anyone plays it 🙂 2 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto
Lame indeed. With all due respect to Cutts. Pretending to be others and spreading misinformation is lame. Period. So, fake Matt Cutts, please leave us alone. Real Matt Cutts, feel free to chime in any time. Readers, just beware that the comments you read may or may not be real. We’ll continue to police them the best we can.
If you are a regular follower of what the real Cutts says, and what he is saying in a comment sounds like something he wouldn’t say, there’s a good chance it’s not him who said it. If you’re ever unsure, and you care enough to make a decision based on what was or wasn’t said, Cutts has said in the past that he will verify via Twitter whether it was him that said it. So keep that in mind.