Back on June 12th, I published a story on Search Engine Land on how Google is working on a fix for Metafilter.

Back then, I was under the impression that Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, was in direct communication with Matt Haughey, the co-founder of Metafilter. When I published the story, Matt from Metafilter told me he never even spoke to him directly, only some vague emails about issues:

Here are some tweets:

So then when Matt Cutts announces his extended leave the other day, Matt Haughey wishes him a good time and thanks him for his help:

Then Matt Cutts says that he always enjoys talking to him:

I thought they only exchanged some vague cryptic emails?

I guess these conversations could have happened after my story? I am not sure. It is clear from Matt Cutts now that this is something Google is updating on the algorithm side, which will not just help Metafilter but other forum sites.

As I reported back then, this was an update from November 17, 2012 and seemed to have had a major impact on many forum-like web sites. Google wouldn’t talk about it then, but now, they are talking.

I suspect any of you hit on that date, will want to follow to see when the MetaFilter update (naming it that) is released and see if you are also released from that unconfirmed update.

Google’s Matt Cutts will not give us more details on that update.

Another side note: When Google does not confirm updates, it clearly doesn’t mean there was no update. So I will keep reporting unconfirmed Google updates – just in case years later Google confirms them.

Anyway, here is Metafilter’s Google visibility according to SearchMetrics, there seems to be an uptick:

I tend to look into these things a bit too much, so I apologize.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: A comment with more details has been added by Matt of Metafilter: