David Iwanow On Continuously Reinventing Yourself In web optimization

I drove out to see David Iwanow at the Reckitt offices in New Jersey to chat SEO. David is the Head of Search at Reckitt, he is based in Amsterdam but came in to do some SEO training for his teams there. David has been in SEO since 2007 and we talk about how we have aged so much in this industry.

We are now the old folks in the industry, when we use to be the young ones. David said you need to keep reinventing yourself in this space to stay relevant. Even more so with all the AI stuff and ChatGPT and so on.

Of course we talk about some of the earlier days in SEO, including building links and it being considered white hat links. We spoke a bit about how the nofollow attribute was introduced in 2005 and how I refused for years to add it to my links. I also got hit by a Panda penalty back in the days.

He started in SEO after building a site for friends/family and found it interesting and looked at how search engines worked. And he followed the right people through the right path and found the right mentors and so forth. He said he was lucky and followed that right path. But also, doing the wrong things can teach you a lesson and you learn from it.

You can follow David Iwanow on Twitter @davidiwanow.

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