What a year! From traveling to software development, saying goodbye to old friends and growing the team with new ones, we've had a tremendously exciting 12 months at SEOmoz. To celebrate, next week, on Wednesday, January 6th 2010, we'll be hosting an informal meetup at the Elysian Brewery on Capitol Hill in Seattle, WA. Everyone from the Seattle technology, startup and SEO community is welcome to attend, and we'll be hosting a special guest, Distilled's Will Critchlow (who's chosen the worst possible time, weather-wise, to visit our fair city). Please RSVP via the Google form below!
In addition to the meetup, I thought it would be appropriate (and fun) to celebrate the year with a look back in pictures. Enjoy!
SEOmoz's Mel Gray, Matt Heilman, Gillian Muessig, Nick Gerner, Sarah Bird & Mike Thompson at Seattle's Big Climb Event, raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
The SEOmoz December holiday party at Olive8 - (Left to Right) Arden, Jimmy, Christine, Sarah, Ben Huff, Timmy, Gillian, Adam, Sam, Jen, Rand, Chas, Kate, Darren, Danny & Nick. Why did we all stuff into the dual showers? Umm... I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. You can watch our holiday video greeting and more holiday party photos on Facebook.
SEOmoz's Chas Williams and Sarah Bird won most festive attire at our holiday event.
Tony Adam (BillShrink), smiling next to his SEOmoz Werewolf/Search Spam card at Pubcon Las Vegas in November
Kristy Bolsinger (blog), Kate Morris (blog) & Matt Cutts (blog) at the SEOmoz Werewolf Party at Pubcon Las Vegas
Ben Hendrickson and Jen Lopez, attired in full moz regalia, carrying "link juice" by the SEOmoz booth at SMX Advanced in Seattle
Ben, Danny (with a mustache! - he's hidden so look real close), Chas, Scott & Timmy at lunch downstairs from SEOmoz's offices at the Elysian Brewery on Capitol Hill
Sarah Bird hard at work in our cramped conference room
Sometimes, when we have tough decisions to make and could go either way, we Roshambo. I lost this round, and we ended up spending $5K on some professional services in our search for a new VP of Engineering.
Aimclear's Marty Weintraub sent us a singing gorilla for the holidays. Tragically, I was out of town, but got to watch the video on Facebook :-)
At the beginning of the year, we had some construction work done on the office to help accomodate new arrivals
Mozzers hard at work in the conference room (and apparently freezing cold, too).
Ben Hendrickson explains ranking models and how we can "prove" H1 tags don't really matter for SEO
Rand, Sarah, and SEOmoz board member & investor, Michelle Goldberg at The Naked Truth (a startup event in Seattle). Leaning on my shoulder is Mystery Guest, who tragically forgot sunglasses (why didn't I give her mine?!)
The Conversion Rate Experts squirrel (yes, they have a mascot) at the SEOmoz/Distilled London PR) Training Seminar in October. Must check on progress of the SEOmoz Ring-tailed Lemur mascot costume.
Jon Kelly (Quinstreet), Tony Adam (Billshrink), Andy Liu (BuddyTV) and Neil Patel (Quicksprout) at SEOmoz's annual party after SMX Advanced in Seattle at the Garage (photo-bombing courtesy of Matt Cutts)
Rand on Hubspot TV with Mike Volpe in Hubspot's Boston offices (Rand: "My grandparents asked what channel I was going to be on.")
Rand is subsumed by Kristjan Mar Hauksson's (of Nordic eMarketing) gigantic Viking hands in an Icelandic ice bar in the capital, Reykjavik following RIMC 2009
Dixon Jones (Receptional), Adam Lasnik (Google) & Rand go glacier hiking in Iceland
Rand at Searchfest Portland with Anne Kennedy (BeyondInk) and Adam Audette (Audette Media) speaking about SEOmoz's history & future (apparently I was a bit more animated than most other folks) :-)
On a panel at SES London chaired by Mike Grehan (SES), Rand pictured with Brett Tabke (WebmasterWorld), Chris Sherman (Third Door Media), Jill Whalen (HighRankings) and Kevin Ryan (WebVisible)
Outside the Chicago Hilton for SES Chicago with Richard Zwicky (Enquisite), Bill Leake (Apogee), Aaron Kahlow (OMS)
Jane Copland (Ayima), Danny Dover, Rand & Richard Baxter (SEO Gadget) in London following the Distilled/SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar
Mystery Guest gives Rob Kerry (Ayima) a gift in London on our way back from lunch near the Ayima offices. ("Why is my love always a source of linkbait?" - MG)
Rand & Will Critchlow (Distilled), standing under their respective time zone clocks in Distilled's London offices.
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Alexander Holl (blog), Rand, Sandra & Matthew Finlay (Rising Media), Marcus Tandler (Mediadonis) at an SMX Munich party
Rand with Vanessa Fox (NineByBlue) & Mystery Guest in Bled, Slovenia for a day trip following SMX Munich
Rand & Mystery Guest join Nirav Tolia (Fanbase) for lunch in San Francisco during one of Rand's VC fundraising expeditions to the valley
Bob Rains (blog), Lawrence Coburn (Rateitall), Lauren Vaccarello (Salesforce), Todd Malicoat (Stuntdubl) and Donna Rains in a limo during a (loosely SEO related) wine tasting trip in Monterey, CA
Laura Lippay (blog), Mystery Guest, Vanessa Fox (NinebyBlue), Lauren Vaccarello (Salesforce) & Jessica Bowman (SEM in House) in San Francisco following the Jane & Robot conference
Rand, Tom Critchlow (Distilled), Ken Jurina (Epiar), Dharmesh Shah (OnStartups & Hubspot), David Mihm (blog), Matt Brown (Define Search Strategy), Danny Dover & Nick Gerner at the SEOmoz PRO Training Seattle
Mystery Guest homemade retro Star Trek outfits for Halloween this year (and got a wig + Vulcan ears to complete her ensemble)
Rand with his grandparents, Si & Pauline Fishkin at a Broadway musical following SMX East in New York City
Rand & Cindy Krum (Rank Mobile) tour Soho during SMX East in New York City
Left to Right: Rand, Greg Boser (3Dog Media), Barry Smyth (BSocial), Stephen Pavlovich (Conversion Rate Experts), Rob Kerry (Ayima), Aidan Beanland (Yahoo!7), Michael Motherwell (MMIT Search Australia), Bruce Clay (Bruce Clay, Inc), Greg Grothaus (Google)
The SEOmoz whiteboards in our conference room, showing off early concepts of new software (codenamed "Turbomoz") we're hoping to launch this coming June
Ciaran Norris (Mindshare) was interviewed by Channel 4 in the UK on social media, search & Rupert Murdoch's threats to shut off Google traffic. Tragically, he appeared garbed in naught save rags, and couldn't be bothered to properly attire with a cravatte. Credit to Jane Copland for the image capture.
Rand, with a traditional Colombian hat, a gift from Gustavo Parra (at right) pictured at SMX Advanced Seattle
The SEOmoz crew outside the Garage following our party at SMX Advanced
David Temple (SEM Scholar), Gillian Muessig and Barry Smyth (BSocial) at SMX Singapore
Jen Lopez at SMX Advanced with Michael Gray (Wolf Howl)
Oh, and just FYI, the photos above are in no particular chronological order.
NOTE: If you've got other photos to share, please feel free to link to 'em!
Rand, I love you, I really do. From the fact that you made Star Trek outfits for Halloween and then blamed it on MG to the fact that you've just published a ridiculous in-joke in your yearly round up. God bless you sir.
Hope your 2010 is as good as your 2009 was; come and see us soon.
Oh my God, my crudely photoshopped motivational poster of Ciaran made the SEOmoz blog. This is... unexpected. I am duly giggling my way through a second glass of wine.
I may add that this was all because of some very rude tie jokes Rand texted to Ciaran as Q&A during our linkbait session at SMX Sydney in 2008.
This is my favourite photo from the Moz conference (those drinks were awesome and dangerous). Although I also like this one, because it proves that I am taller than at least one person on the planet.
What a fantastic year. The best yet, by a long, long way.
Who's the guy wearing my " Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty, murder." tee from threadless? Let me be the first to say he has excellent taste in humour.
The best bit is, he's a vegetarian.
Well, if he's ovo-lacto, then he's still a murderous dog, with a great sense of humour.
I don't even know the inside joke behind that picture and it cracks me up every time I see it. :)
"$5 to the first person who can name the gentleman at the far left" > That´s Alexander Holl (https://www.alexander-holl.de/), Head of SMX Munich´s Advisory Board.
Oh, and btw. -> my blog is over at www.mediadonis.net and not www.mediadonis.com (A friend of mine still owns that adress - I guess, I should talk him out of it over a beer sometimes :-) ...)
Thanks Marcus! I owe you a beer; hope to see you again soon :-)
I'm going to be disappointed if you don't send him a $5 bill in the mail.
Same here, there's nothing better than cold, hard cash arriving through the post.
Send it in quarters :D
Ooh, send it in State specific quarters. They're awesome.
OK fine - $5 in the mail it is. Marcus - I need your address!
LOL - please don´t :-)
I like the beer offer - see ya at SES New York!!
Very, very nice demotivator! ^^
Love the pics! Very Informative sites everybody. Some interesting factoids for us all. The paid link issue is likely to rear its head again this year as it would appear Google is still struggling to determine which are and which are not paid links, even with the help of web master feedback. We would expect to see Google et al make a further push to reduce this influence. -------------------------------------------- Melinda Storer
pic looks great:) happy new year
Looks fun.
Seeing photo roundups of events is one of my favorite topics for the SEOmoz blogs. Although I wasn't at any of them :*( , it kinda makes me feel like I was.
Thanks for the memories Rand!
Rand is there are free test or a trial to a new software? I wish it has. :D
Lisa Barone and Tony Adam are in that last picture along with Jen and Graywolf.
We have to wait until June for TurboMoz!? Too bad. I'm dieing to get started with it after talking to some moz staff at the Seattle Pro Training.
Unfortunately it's a massive engineering undertaking, and required us to rebuild lots and lots of backend stuff before we could start on the functionality and frontend. PRO members may be seeing some features rolling out piece by piece into labs/PRO over the next few months, though and there's another big product release on the Linkscape front coming out before February :-)
Well... these news are really a great way to begin this 2010 (tiping softly as the baby child is 'angelically' sleeping here close, Spain here and 00.38 am).
Again... have a great a beginning and a better end in 2010.
I'm surprised TurboMoz has only had one mention in the comments on this post. VERY exciting and massive potential to become the SEO tool of 2010.
You can glean quite a lot from that photo if you look at it long enough... Unfortunately, the Turbomoz page seems to be down, so that whiteboard shot is all we have right now...
Exciting stuff for 2010 and looks like a wicked 2009 was had. Can't wait to see Turbomoz and all other new lovlies that come out of moz in this new year.
Can't wait to see you all on Wednesday. Thanks for hosting that, Rand. I'm packing now for my flight very early tomorrow morning. Trying to work out what I have (inevitably) forgotten.
I love that photo of Ciaran - even though I saw it on email at the time, it makes me laugh every time.
Great! Sharing of delightful moments thoughtout the year of 2009 and i hope same will happen in 2010 too
Great photos and what a shame I cannot be there to share a beer with all of you in Seattle... Maybe it will be some other time.
Loved the photos; and - to make a little ranking - especially I like the "Nasa style" one (or the SEOs 'Crazy' Doctors) and the Star Trek one (really well done costumes).
I wish you all a great 2010 (love this combination of numbers, graphically so cool) and sure that we all will have great opportunities to grew both professionaly and as humanbeings.
And, YES!, us SEOs or Devs or simply people-who-likes-to-have-fun-and-gain-money-with-technology are not all nerds and freaks. We know so well the online world because we live the offline one at its fullest.
Cheers to all of you fellow Mozzers.
I really love these pictures. :) I'm trying to remember what made us think that cramming into a shower for our holiday photo was a good idea. But whatever the reason was it sure was fun.
Love the pics! Looks like a very eventful 2009. And who says SEOers stay in front of their computers all day long? ;)
I wondered when that photo of Geraldine and I would pop up :o)
Can't make the January party unfortunately, but may be over your way in March if you fancy meeting up (currently working on my roadtrip plans).
Great pics Rand, seems you guys had a great year at seomoz. Was wondering why the pic with the Colombian hat at SMX Advanced didn´t make it in this post? Wish I had a way to upload it myself.... HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE.
Gustavo - do you know where that picture is? I went searching on Flickr and Facebook, but couldn't find it. Would love to add it to the set - I actually wore it again just a few weeks back when handing out holiday bonuses to the moz crew.
Great Rand, just emailed that pic and a couple more from that night at SEOmoz party.
Loving the photographs. It took about five photographs of me going "Who is this Mystery Guest woman?!" to realise that it's probably your wife/partner. Very jealous that you went to Reykjavik. It's one place on this planet that I need to visit.
Just noticed Neil Patel in one of the photographs. I visit Quick Sprout regularly - it's a great site.
Sorry about that! Yes, longtime readers likely know Mystery Guest as the girl I proposed to in 2007. She frequently travels with me, occassionally contributes to the blog and attends her fair share of search conferences. She's now also travel blogging/tweeting as Everywhereist.
Ah I see. Definitely not showing that to my girlfriend. I've already promised her waaaaaay too much for her to get anymore ideas.
Anyway, belated congratulations to you two and I hope you have every possible happiness in all that you do together.
Rand,
I was going to suggest you should just marry that "mystery guest"... preferably by proposing in a commercial :)
I was great to meet her at PubCon in 08 and seeing you again recently in San Diego the other week when you were visiting the in-laws.
,Michael Martin
Rand, what an awesome year - Pro Training was awesome fun and pretty much the entire year's been a bit of a rocket ride... Talking Linkscape with Ben was probably one of my highlights but the squirrel will always have a warm place in my heart. Still working on the travel plans myself - I believe I'll be in Seattle for SMX Advanced so get a meetup organised then too :-)
Rand, where can I get some Link Juice?!
The pics are wonderful, got a laugh out of several of them.
We've got some at the office, so anytime you're in Seattle, swing by (or, better yet, come to the meetup on Wednesday!)