Reflections on the "Tricks and Treats" webmaster event
October 29th, 2008 | Published in Google Webmaster Central
What featured over 750 webmasters and a large number of Googlers from around the world, hundreds of questions, and over one hundred answers over the course of nearly two hours? If you guessed "the Tricks and Treats webmaster event from this earlier this month!" well, you're either absolutely brilliant, you read the title of this post, or both!
How did it go?
It was an exhilarating, exhausting, and educational event, if we may say so ourselves, even though there were a few snafus. We're aware that the sound quality wasn't great for some folks, and we've also appreciated quite-helpful constructive criticisms in this feedback thread. Last but not least, we are bummed to admit that someone (whose name starts with 'A' and ends with 'M') uncharacteristically forgot to hit the record button (really!), so there's unfortunately no audio recording to share :-(.
But on more positive notes, we're delighted that so many of you enjoyed our presentations (embedded below), our many answers, and even some of our bad jokes (mercifully not to be repeated).
What next?
Well, for starters, all of us Webmaster Central Googlers will be spending quite some time taking in your feedback. Some of you have requested sessions exclusively covering particular (pre-announced) topics or tailored to specific experience levels, and we've also heard from many webmasters outside of the U.S. who would love online events in other languages and at more convenient times. No promises, but you can bet we're eager to please! Stay tuned on this blog (and, as a hint and hallo to our German-speaking webmasters, do make sure to follow our German webmaster blog ;-).
And finally, a big thank you!
A heartfelt thank you to my fellow Googlers, many of whom got up at the crack of dawn to get to the office early for the chat and previous day's runthrough or stayed at work late in Europe. But more importantly, major props to all of you (from New Delhi, New York, New Zealand and older places) who asked great questions and hung out with us online for up to two hours. You webmasters are the reason we love coming to work each day, and we look forward to our next chat!
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The presentations...
We had presentations from John, Jonathan, Maile, and Wysz. Presentations from the first three are embedded below (Wysz didn't have a written presentation this time).
John's slides on "Frightening Webmastering Myths"
Jonathan's slides on "Using the Not Found errors report in Webmaster Tools"
Maile's slides on "Where We're Coming From"
Written by Adam Lasnik, Search Evangelist
Edited on Wednesday, October 29 at 6:00pm to update number of participants