I Attended Google’s Creator Conversation Event, And It Turned Into A Funeral
I recently attended a funeral. It was called the Google Web Creator Conversation Event and took place on October 29, 2024, at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Google invited some of the most vocal independent site owners who’ve been shadowbanned by their brutal updates of the last two years, and 20 of them came to pay their respects. We had no idea what the purpose of our visit was going in, but we knew by the time we left.
Danny Sullivan hosted the event. He may be the most knowledgeable and helpful person still left at Google, though he has no real power to effect change.
The day before, he led the group on a tour of Google’s biggest office during the busiest part of weekday work hours and seemed slightly embarrassed that at no point during the tour was anyone there. The building was empty, a shell designed as a hub of activity, drained of people willing to engage in being active.
Empty too, was the rest of Google’s behemoth campus. Their numerous buildings are surrounded by beautiful, park-like pathways with no one to enjoy them but the groundskeepers. They follow the paths with their lawnmowers, weaving between softly shaded employee parking lots, with no one to park in them.
