Special interview with Google VIP Johannes Müller (JohnMu)

John is an absolute star of the Google Webmaster Help Group, he is the author of tremendous helpful tools, like the GSiteCrawler sitemap generator and the SEO analysis website oy-oy.eu. All people who post to Google Webmaster Help Group are of course wonderful, there are some excellent regulars, and John interviewed them on his site johnmu.com. Now I have the occasion to interview John himself, he is one of those perfect people who can find time for everything and do everything perfectly :)
Recently John posted on the Google Webmaster Help Group the tremendous news that he is starting a fabulous job at Google as Web Trends Analyst. Congratulations and the best of luck!
John lives in magical Switzerland, is married and has two children, 2 and 5 years old. He likes to cycle to work and surf the web on his mobile phone (maybe not at the same time?), and he is an absolute programming and web guru. I do not know more than this, let's see what we can find out from the interview!

Congratulations again for your fabulous job at Google! Your job title of Web trends analyst is very inspiring, I am sure it will entail much more than that, but tell us please how you see the web in the future, what are some main web trends?

Hi Cristina, thanks for the nice introduction, now I'm blushing :-). It's hard to guess what kind of trends we'll see in the future, things change so quickly. I can only take a guess... hmm.. I see a few areas which I feel are going to grow and become more and more important. For one, I see more and more non-computer-type people online, especially from that segment that has so far remained offline or has only used basic services such as email. These people will be using the web for practical reasons - and sometimes because they're pressured into doing it (eg when electronic banking is much less expensive than visiting in person). I wonder what they will think of the web, a web which has for the most part matured past its wild and crazy teenage period? Will they be positively surprised, will they use it more than they intended to in the beginning? It's going to be interesting to follow them.

I see more and more social aspects coming to the average web-visitor. They'll take part in forums, they'll join local interest groups, they'll post their opinions and discuss issues with like-minded people world-wide and those just around the corner. It's becoming easier than ever to set up a meeting place where issues can be discussed. More and more sites are taking advantage of the possibilities of direct interaction - and of course of the willingness of the users provide their opinions and ideas. Ten years ago, online newsgroups and forums were mainly for the "web elite", now every online supermarket has several ways that users can interact. I like that -- but at the same time, I see a big potential problem: when you interact online, you do not know who your "reader" is - and once it's online, it will be visible for everyone, forever. Where do you draw the line? If you meet friends in a pub, you can chat with them about everything. If you do the same online, that chat may suddenly be broadcast on billboards everywhere. I feel it's vital that everyone draws a strict line about what they will put online and what they won't. This is especially true for younger people.

The rise in social activity will make traditional web-search much harder: where do you choose the results, from some short and possibly unfounded opinion (or perhaps the start of the latest trend?) and a traditional, static reference? It's going to be interesting to see how things evolve in that regard.

I know I'm late as a mobile phone surfer, but even now there are still sooo many areas where usability on a phone is impossible. I know this is going to be a big area in the future -- if you can browse on the phone, there is less need to do the same on the computer. If you can check in to your office with your phone, you might be able to save yourself a trip to the desktop. If you can get things done with the phone, it's going to be done more and more. You could twiddle thumbs while waiting at the dentist, or you could be out shopping on your phone, reading forums, participating in online conversations.

I see China making more and more impact in the rest of the world. What kind of ideas will rise out of their culture, which is in part so different than ours? What will "China's Google" (whatever that may be) change in the western online world? That is going to be interesting, I wonder how things will change, what will happen when the cultures mix online and off.

John, you live in a wonderful place, I am sure you have a perfect family, tell us a bit about this :)

Switzerland is small :-). It has so many distinct areas, often split off by geographic elements, all those mountains and lakes... That makes every area even smaller. Switzerland has four official languages (German, French, Italian and Raetoromanisch). That makes it much harder to even cover all of Switzerland, if you have something to offer -- which you can see on the web as well. It's hard enough to make a website that is usable for one language group, imagine doing the same on a regular basis for three (Raetoromanisch is very rare). For search engines, this complicates things even more. If you as a user understand German and French, how can you tell Google to bring those two kinds of sites -- regardless of whether or not the sites are from Switzerland? If you are looking for country-wide information here, you almost have to check three languages, if you want to make sure that you do not miss anything (oh and of course English as well).

A few words to the Google Webmaster Help Group perhaps?

I really, really like the Google Webmaster Help Groups. I love how it has become a place where people with various levels of experience can come in, ask a question and get a competent answer without much fuss and trouble. It's great to see webmasters have a place where they can learn how to improve their sites in a way that everyone can profit, not just their search engine placement. Often, when a site has trouble with the search engines, it is also problematic with regards to usability and accessibility.

I like how the groups have remained noncommercial. There are no power-posters there that are just out to promote their own services. The regulars are all people who just genuinely like to help other people to get things working better, regardless of any compensation. The advice being given is regularly of very high quality, the information passed on by the regular posters is mostly correct.It doesn't get any better than that.

Every now and then I see people get stuck in discussions, learning about what other people think and trying to figure out how both opinions could be combined. I like how that is generally possible without a "flame war". I would never have thought that it could run so well without regular and constant moderating. I think for a large part, that's because of the regular posters there who help to keep things running smoothly. It's a great bunch of people. I think I would have no problem unconditionally inviting them all over for a big grill party (besides the "small" problem of not having enough room).

What are your plans as a new Google Employee, an amazing blue badge holder?

I hope to bring more of the "small-time" webmaster's point of view into Google's plans. Things are working pretty good for most of the larger sites, many of the small-time webmasters are however still having trouble getting their sites found properly. For one part, I think that there are still many issues that these small sites could resolve to make things better -- making a site in "Word" and pasting it into an old copy of "Frontpage", hosting it with a free hoster within a few levels of framing is asking for trouble, but many people don't know better. I would love to find out ways that they could improve their sites with minimal work (sometimes it's easier to do things right than to do things incorrectly -- only if you don't know how, you wouldn't know that you could do things differently).

Then there will be those sites that can't change things for one reason or other - I would love to figure out ways that they could be fully included anyway. Maybe a friend of the family put the site together, not only does it contain the worst possible technical combinations, it also contains all the early 90's "black-hat" tricks -- how could Google figure out that the webmaster can't possibly work out a better solution on his own but isn't trying to cheat? There's a lot of really interesting and important information that could get lost if it is excluded for technicalities. I don't want that to happen.

John, thank you very much for the interview! It would be great if you will have the time later for another interview, about your great job at Google, and the great things you will achieve! Good luck and best wishes!