Matt Cutts, who joined Google in January 2000 and lead Google’s web spam efforts, announced on his blog he is leaving Google for a short period of time to help the US Digital Service department, specifically the Defense Digital Service at the Pentagon.

He said this has been something he has been thinking about for a while and he wants to make a difference here. He said the projects and team are “contagious.”

He said he will be doing this for the “next few months” while on an additional leave from Google. In July 2014 Matt Cutts took a leave from Google and since then, has extended his leave for some time. His job there was eventually replaced but we haven’t heard since of his status. We knew he was still getting medical coverage from the company. I guess now, he is really taking a full leave from Google to work with this team.

Matt Cutts posted a bit more detail on Hacker News about this:

Honestly, I am not surprised by this move from Cutts. I always thought he’d want to help with government issues.

Forum discussion at Twitter, WebmasterWorld and Hacker News.