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Yoast CEO Responds to #YoastCon Twitter Controversy, Calls for Change in the SEO Industry

Yoast CEO Marieke van de Rakt published a post yesterday, addressing the controversy that dominated the #YoastCon hashtag on Twitter in the days leading up the the event. Several parties from the SEO industry began circulating old tweets, along unsavory videos depicting Joost de Valk partying with promotional models. de Valk issued a public apology on Twitter before YoastCon officially kicked off.

In her post, titled “Let’s create a more female-friendly world!”, van de Rakt characterized the incident as an attack and cited examples of how Yoast is actively working to improve the position of women:

We were all hurt. We really don’t understand why the company Yoast is being attacked, why the #yoastcon is being used for something the person Joost did 10 years ago. Our company and our company culture is nothing like the tweets imply.

van de Rakt also referenced a post from Gisele Navarro, a woman who has been working in the SEO industry for 10 years.

“I totally agree with Gisele that the SEO industry was not welcoming to women ten years ago,” van de Rakt said. “And although some things may have changed, I still think that the SEO industry has a long way to go. I also think that the problem is much bigger than the SEO industry.”

After the tweets and videos began circulating on the #YoastCon hashtag, the @yoast Twitter account was quietly scrubbed of potentially offensive tweets. The total tweet count for the account was 44.1K on January 31, 2019.

On February 8, 2019, the account’s total tweets were slashed to 10.7K. Approximately 33,000 tweets have been deleted in the wake of this controversy.

Some of the tweets were still available via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine during the height of the controversy and screenshots were shared widely.

One recipient of the tweets, Lisa Barone, dismissed them as “friends being stupid,” but de Valk’s wife, Marieke van de Rakt, admitted in her recent post that the tweets and videos were hurtful to her. Since the tweets were public, many onlookers said they felt uncomfortable reading these types of interactions within a professional context.

Navarro’s post described how the tweets made her feel as an outside onlooker working in the male-dominated SEO industry:

I don’t know the story behind the ‘friendly and consensual sexual banter’ (as someone called it) of those tweets so I’ve got zero context on how the conversations led to Joost saying things like:

‘I bet you’d look good, even when pregnant ;-)’

‘Ahem, why are you not naked indeed?’

‘Nothing beats a yummy young mummy :)’

When I read those tweets, that was all I could think of – Decades of obscenities been pushed on me by men who thought that was normal, acceptable behavior.

I thought about how much it would have crushed me back then if someone I respected were to have said something like that to me. I wondered if I would still be part of the SEO community had that happened.

I imagined how would I have felt if before or after that tweet, I were to have been an attendee at SEOktoberfest surrounded by Playboy escorts who touched themselves looking at the camera while I was having a beer in a corner, trying to network my way to a job interview at an agency I loved.

After the tweets and videos began to get attention on the #YoastCon hashtag, many in the SEO industry dismissed the content as an attack orchestrated by trolls who they alleged are also guilty of harassment. Several spoke out against David Cohen in particular, who had originally started the controversy by unearthing the old content, describing him as the person behind other troll accounts known for sending harassing tweets.

Regardless of how the old content came to light on Twitter, both Joost de Valk and Yoast CEO Marieke van de Rakt have admitted that the tweets and videos are indefensible and not representative of their company’s current push to empower women.

Navarro’s post calls readers to look at the tweets and videos from the perspective of someone working in the SEO industry, wondering if they should attend conferences after seeing leaders and role models behaving in a way:

To those of you who are defending the SEO personality that is Joost: remove the so-called SEO trolls and #YoastCon from the picture, go through the tweets and ask yourself how would YOU feel if someone you look up to says those things to you on a public forum. Would you feel comfortable attending a conference knowing this person would be there? Would you want him to be your boss? Would you feel safe around this person? Would you have anybody to talk to about what happened and how you felt? Would you even bring it up?

The #YoastCon Twitter controversy has had the positive effect of highlighting behavior and public communication styles that need to be addressed in order to create a more welcoming and diverse SEO industry. In spite of the recent challenges, van de Rakt said she is hopeful that her company can continue working towards creating “an atmosphere at conferences that is friendly for all people, regardless of their gender.” On this Navarro and van de Rakt both agree – the conditions for women working in the SEO industry are ripe for improvement.

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YoastCon Overshadowed by Twitter Storm: Joost de Valk, SEO Industry Leaders Called Out for Objectifying Women

The third edition of YoastCon kicked off today in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, but for those following remotely the conference has been overshadowed by a discussion that erupted on the #yoastcon hashtag prior to the event. Several parties began circulating tweets and unsavory videos involving Joost de Valk, for which he has since publicly apologized.

The story was complicated and confusing to follow, as many of these decade-old tweets were deleted and the videos made private by the websites that are hosting them. The parties who were publishing screenshots from archive.org alleged that de Valk was sexually harassing women in the SEO industry.

One of the women to whom some of the tweets were directed has publicly stated that she did not perceive them as harassment and that the tweets were taken out of context.

de Valk responded yesterday with a public apology, acknowledging the tweets and videos.

He also provided a statement to the Tavern with more context on the after party videos.

“The videos are of an event I’ve attended over the last decade called SEOktoberfest, which is an SEO conference at Oktoberfest,” de Valk said. “I’m honestly ashamed of those videos when I see them now… It looks bad and I wouldn’t behave like that now, but I don’t think anything I did myself at those events was ever out of line.”

Marieke van de Rakt, who recently took on the role of CEO of Yoast, said she thought the tweets were brought to public attention in retaliation for the company announcing a project to empower women working at Yoast. de Valk left the CEO role to focus on product development at Yoast and his new role of Marketing and Communications Lead at WordPress.org.

I feel like it started after I was announced CEO and later on talked about a project to empower women working at Yoast. I got some really upsetting tweets. After that it started focusing on #yoastcon. It seems like they want to show the hypocrisy in our statements about women. I never spoke at SEO events before, though I have been to SEOktoberfest. It felt totally welcoming back then. That being said, the pictures and movies aren’t something I particularly enjoy watching. I do think they’re bad, but also a bit out of context. The environment at Yoast is nothing like that. And although my husband likes to party (as do I), I feel he’s always been a strong believer in equal rights and opportunities. I think we all make mistakes and learn from them. At Yoast, we’re really trying to improve inequality with both the diversity fund and my empowerment project.

For those watching the #yoastcon hashtag, the way the situation unfolded it almost seemed like a coordinated personal attack on de Valk, especially given how the SEOktoberfest videos were spliced together with the YoastCon promotional videos. David Cohen, a Philadelphia-based Digital Marketing Director who previously worked at a large SEO agency, started the conversation by publishing de Valk’s old tweets that he had found years ago when researching Yoast and its founder.

“As far as the tweets from Joost are concerned, I’ve known about them since 2014,” Cohen said. “I just never knew what to do with them or how to proceed questioning why that behavior was perfectly acceptable for him.

“As far as the harassment and abuse in the SEO industry, particularly at the SEO conferences, I’ve known about this since 2011 after seeing it firsthand while working at a large SEO agency in Philly, Seer Interactive.”

Cohen said that he began publicly criticizing people he calls “SEO celebs” in 2014, for “saying they are against the SEO harassment and abuse, claiming to be ‘male feminists,’ yet knowingly covering up the abuse and enabling the abusers who happen to also be their friends, peers, colleagues, etc.”

While the discussion on the #yoastcon hashtag seems centered around de Valk’s admitted indiscretions, Cohen said his objective in publicizing the old tweets goes beyond de Valk. He’s calling out other leaders in the industry who he alleges have harassed and abused women for years.

“This started a solo mission to take action as a messenger of questions for the group of SEOs most prominent figures who hold the power of influence over the industry about the 10+ year ongoing issue of alleged harassment and abuse of women in the SEO world, particularly at SEO conferences between 2009 and 2012 era.”

Cohen said the timing with YoastCon was “a mission looking for direct and public answers on this topic once and for all while they were all gathered together at the event.” He began tweeting about these issues well before the event and was using the #yoastcon hashtag to call out other SEO industry leaders for the past few months.

When asked about his motive, Cohen said he simply wants answers from de Valk, Rand Fishkin, his wife Geraldine, John Doherty, Martin MacDonald, Marcus Tandler, and others regarding what he perceives to be hypocrisy in the SEO industry.

“Why has it been totally cool for the SEO celebs, rock stars, ninjas, and conference speakers to be misogynists, to objectify and sexualize women, to hire Playmates for their SEO events, and to engage in behavior that would easily be classified as ‘toxic masculinity?'” Cohen said. He claims that industry leaders have been covering up harassment and abuse that they have known about and have refused to help the women who have been abused. Cohen and several others who have been circulating the tweets claim that victims of this abuse have been contacting them to share their stories but have not yet gone public with them.

“I chose to act on this now because I wanted answers to two questions from specific people: 1. Do you know of alleged harassment or abuse because someone went to you directly and told their story? And if so, did you refuse to use your power and influence to help them at the risk of your own professional and personal interests?” Cohen said.

“As for Joost, going with the ‘if I offended anyone’ apology approach is empty and lacks personal accountability for behaviors that are completely misaligned with words. He had to respond publicly. But the question remains open – why?”