December 28 2005, some of the headlines from Danny Sullivan's "Search Engine Report" included "Revisiting The 'No Banners On Google' Declaration," "Craigslist Not Blocking Major Crawlers," and "Patents, Google and Acquisitions..." where Bill listed some impressive insights on patents Google collected from purchased companies. SEObythesea.com became a go-to source for understanding the components and thinking from the search engine's point of view. Bill's concise descriptions and unbiased insights educated me and thousands of others early in their SEO career. We spoke at the same conferences, but didn't end up on the same panels.

So in 2019, I caught Bill in the hall at Pubcon Vegas and thanked him for his work. The conversation quickly went into law, careers, Python for automating tasks and measurement, and of course, the hot topic, at the time, of knowledge graphs. Bill's generosity and depth of knowledge were even more apparent in person. I mentioned what OMCP was doing for digital marketing standards and Bill didn't hesitate to offer his help, should we need it in the future.

A month later Bill joined me on a podcast for OMCP to help folks study up for SEO exams. He didn't ask the audience size, or for anything in return. He just jumped in and shared. And of course, the content remains authoritative and helpful for future SEOs.

That's how we met. And even with a setback like last week's Bill continues to post, help, and encourage those within the digital marketing world and beyond. Here's to a speedy recovery and a hope that all things work out for good. -Michael