We knew this day was coming, he announced he was leaving the company he founded with his mother and that day has come. He posted about it last night on his new company blog, SparkToro. The picture you see above is from there as well.

SparkToro is a software product and data service to help marketers, public relations professionals, and entrepreneurial teams learn more about the audiences they want to reach. And Rand is leading that up.

He wrote a very detailed and transparent blog post about his departure from Moz, a company he founded about 17 years ago (which wasn’t named Moz back then).

I wrote a little bit about how instrumental Rand is to the industry in the past. This is a sad moment for the industry but also should lead to new exciting things.

Rand – thank you for everything and we are looking forward to seeing what you come up with in the future.

You can drop a note on Rand’s blog post or on his tweet wishing him well.

Forum discussion at Twitter.