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Barry Schwartz

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This article is about the American search engine journalist and technologist. For the psychologist, see Barry Schwartz (psychologist). For other people with the same name, see Barry Schwartz.
Independent article. English Wikipedia deleted its article on Schwartz, "Barry Schwartz (technologist)", on 12 April 2026. BarrySchwartz.wiki is not part of Wikipedia. Read about the deletion.

Barry Schwartz (born c. 1980) is an American technologist and search engine journalist. He founded the news site Search Engine Roundtable in December 2003 and is its executive editor,[1][2] is the chief executive and president of RustyBrick, a web development company in Rockland County, New York,[3] and has written for Search Engine Land since it launched in 2006.[4] By his own count he published his 50,000th article about search in October 2026: 39,321 on Search Engine Roundtable, 9,544 on Search Engine Land and 1,135 on Search Engine Watch, where he wrote in 2006.[5]

Schwartz is known for daily reporting on changes to Google Search, including ranking updates that Google has not announced, and his posts are often the record that agencies use to date those changes.[6] He was named Search Personality of the Year at the 2018 US Search Awards.[7] An English Wikipedia biography of Schwartz, created in 2007, was deleted on 12 April 2026 after a deletion discussion in which most editors who took a position found too little in-depth coverage of him in independent sources. Search marketers criticized the decision, among them Danny Sullivan of Google.[8][9]

Early years and education [edit]

In his early years Schwartz built websites with his twin brother, Ronnie. The name RustyBrick dates to 1994, when the brothers were 14, and Schwartz has said his brother came up with it while they were in high school.[10] He graduated summa cum laude from Baruch College of the City University of New York in 2002.[11]

Career [edit]

Schwartz's career has combined running a web development company with writing about search, which he began in 2003.

RustyBrick

RustyBrick, where Schwartz is chief executive and president, describes itself as a New York web service firm specializing in customized online technology. The company credits Ronnie Schwartz as its founder and chief technology officer.[3] It has built web software since 1994 and is based in West Nyack, in Rockland County.[12] Its work includes custom e-commerce, content management and CRM systems, and it publishes Jewish prayer apps such as the Siddur App, along with apps for Google Glass and Apple Vision Pro.[11][13] RustyBrick also owns and publishes Search Engine Roundtable.[6] In October 2026 its developers built the site's "Is it new?" tool, which lets readers upload a screenshot of a search feature and have AI judge whether it is new.[14] Schwartz consults only for experienced SEO practitioners and works as an expert witness in search marketing cases.[2]

Search Engine Roundtable

Search Engine Roundtable began on 2 December 2003 as the RustyBrick Weblog, which Schwartz, then 23, started to archive the best discussions in the search marketing community.[1][15][16] By late January 2004 it had been renamed the Search Engine Roundtable Weblog and set out to report on popular threads in search marketing forums, a format that survives in its Daily Search Forum Recap.[17][18]

Schwartz is the site's executive editor and main writer. At its 22nd anniversary in December 2025 he counted about 40,500 stories, more than 37,500 of them his own, and said he had posted several times a day on every workday for 22 years.[16] The site moved to a custom-built version 5 in January 2024, and in June 2026 it added a chart that aggregates readings from third-party Google volatility trackers.[19][20]

Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land

Schwartz began writing for Search Engine Watch in February 2006, when the site's founder, Danny Sullivan, asked him to become the news correspondent for its blog.[21] When Sullivan left later that year to start Search Engine Land, Schwartz and Chris Sherman joined him, and Schwartz has written for Search Engine Land since its launch on 11 December 2006.[4] He was long described as its news editor and later as a contributing editor.[b] After Semrush bought Third Door Media, the parent company of Search Engine Land, in October 2024, Campaign reported that Schwartz would stay with the publication.[22] He wrote in October 2026 that he was still active there.[5]

Video, podcasts and conferences

Schwartz's video and podcast work began on 11 January 2008 with a video edition of the site's weekly news roundup, which continues as a weekly recap and is also published as the podcast Search Buzz Video Roundup.[23][24] From July 2019 to December 2023 he recorded 254 episodes of a vlog interviewing people from the search community.[25][26] By December 2024 he had started It's New, a near-daily search news video made with Mordy Oberstein and Greg Finn, first with Crystal Carter and later with Anu Adegbola.[27][16]

At conferences, Schwartz has spoken, moderated and live-blogged at the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) series, whose programming he helps manage.[10][11] In 2008 he started SphinnCon Israel, later renamed SMX Israel, which he chaired.[28]

Coverage of Google Search [edit]

Schwartz's coverage of Google Search centers on changes to rankings and search results. He has described himself as "hyper-focused" on both confirmed and unconfirmed algorithm updates, and by his count he covered more than 40 unconfirmed updates in the year to December 2025.[15][16] Search Engine Roundtable gave the August 2018 core update the nickname "Medic" because its survey data suggested health and medical sites were hit hardest.[29] The name of the March 2017 "Fred" update came from Google's Gary Illyes, who coined it in reply to Schwartz on Twitter and later confirmed the update to him.[30][31]

Google has also confirmed changes to Schwartz on the record. One example is the rollout of google.com/goto passthrough links in August 2026, a confirmation that PPC Land said "anchored everything that followed".[32][6] In July 2022 Google's Search Off the Record series published a segment titled "How Barry Schwartz Created RustyBrick".[33]

Recognition [edit]

Recognition for Schwartz includes the US Search Awards' Search Personality of the Year for 2018 and the Outstanding Community Service Award at the 2019 Search Engine Land Awards, which he shared with Greg Sterling.[10][34] Search Engine Roundtable won several reader-voted blog awards in its early years.[35]

Selected awards
YearAwardPresented by
2005Best Search Engine Community Blog (to Search Engine Roundtable)[35]Search Engine Journal
2005, 2006Readers' Choice, Best Search Marketing Blog (to Search Engine Roundtable)[35]MarketingSherpa
2007Best SEO Blog (to Search Engine Roundtable)[35]Search Engine Journal
2018Search Personality of the Year[36][7]US Search Awards
2019Outstanding Community Service Award, shared with Greg Sterling[34]Search Engine Land Awards
2023Top 50 Most Influential PPCers[37]Marketing O'Clock

Reception [edit]

Reception of Schwartz's work centers on its value as a record. A September 2026 profile in PPC Land said that "in practice the name functions less as a byline than as a citation", because agencies that date a Google update usually rely on a post he filed within hours of it.[6]

The same profile set out the limits of the method. Reports of unconfirmed updates rest on forum complaints and third-party rank trackers, neither of which observes Google's systems directly, and coverage can amplify the chatter it reports. With one writer behind 93 percent of the archive, the record pauses when he does. The profile also noted that Search Engine Land is owned by a vendor whose own tracker is among those that volatility coverage cites.[6]

Wikipedia article [edit]

Schwartz's Wikipedia article, "Barry Schwartz (technologist)", was created on 4 January 2007, and it survived deletion discussions that month and in September 2011, both closed as keep.[38][39]

A third nomination, opened on 28 March 2026, called him a "non-notable SEO consultant" and said there were "a few brief quotes and interviews but hardly anything significant".[8] Schwartz replied in the discussion that he did not sell SEO services and had spent more than 20 years documenting how search changed, and he wrote on X that he was "not even an SEO consultant (I just write about it)".[8][40] Participants who favored deletion argued that interviews, quotations and his own articles were not significant coverage of him in independent sources. One agreed that he was "a well-known figure in the SEO industry" but wrote that "we need genuine biographical coverage in reliable sources". Of the two keep opinions left standing, one was set aside as machine-written.[8] An administrator closed the discussion as delete without a written rationale, and the article was removed at 04:17 UTC on 12 April 2026.[41]

The deletion drew objections from search marketers. The consultant Glenn Gabe wrote that it was "hard to believe Barry doesn't meet the threshold for a Wikipedia page",[42] and Danny Sullivan, who described himself as "a director within Google Search", argued on the discussion's talk page that Schwartz was notable in the field of search.[9] Search Engine Roundtable ran a satirical tribute by the guest author Mordy Oberstein.[43] D. F. Lovett, a Wikipedia editor who writes the newsletter Edit History, first traced the dispute to long-running friction between Wikipedia editors and the SEO industry, a conclusion he later called "too reductive". Schwartz told him that he respected "the decisions of the Wikipedia editors".[44][45] The article had not been restored as of October 2026.[41]

Personal life [edit]

In his personal life, Schwartz lives in the New York area with his wife and children.[11] He is Jewish and goes offline for the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, which Search Engine Roundtable announces in programming notes.[15][46]

See also [edit]

Notes [edit]

References [edit]

  1. Schwartz, Barry (2 December 2003). "Welcome to the RustyBrick Weblog". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  2. "Search Engine Roundtable Authors". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  3. "RustyBrick'ers: Our Team". RustyBrick. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  4. Schwartz, Barry (24 November 2006). "Danny Sullivan & Crew Moves From SE Watch to SE Land". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  5. Schwartz, Barry (7 October 2026). "Barry Schwartz's 50,000 Stories On Search". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  6. Rijo, Luis (20 September 2026). "Explaining Barry Schwartz". PPC Land. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  7. Niñofranco, Angel (30 November 2018). "Who Should Win as the U.S. Search Personality of Personalities?". Search Engine Journal. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  8. "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barry Schwartz (technologist) (3rd nomination)". Wikipedia. 28 March to 12 April 2026. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  9. "Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Barry Schwartz (technologist) (3rd nomination)". Wikipedia. Statement by Danny Sullivan, 14 April 2026. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  10. Goodwin, Danny (24 October 2019). "Barry Schwartz on Covering SEO News, Productivity & How to Grow a Business". Search Engine Journal. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  11. "Barry Schwartz, CEO of RustyBrick". RustyBrick. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  12. "Web Development and Design Company in Rockland County New York at RustyBrick". RustyBrick. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  13. "Web Design, Web Development & Web Services New York, NY". RustyBrick. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  14. Schwartz, Barry (19 October 2026). "Is It New? AI Scan Tool". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  15. Schwartz, Barry (1 December 2023). "Search Engine Roundtable's 20th Anniversary". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  16. Schwartz, Barry (2 December 2025). "Search Engine Roundtable's 22nd Anniversary". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  17. Schwartz, Barry (28 January 2004). "Changes to Take Place at The Search Engine Roundtable Weblog". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  18. "About The Search Engine Roundtable". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  19. Schwartz, Barry (1 January 2024). "Search Engine Roundtable Version 5 Is Out". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  20. Schwartz, Barry (1 June 2026). "SER Volatility Aggregator Chart & Backend Update". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  21. Schwartz, Barry (9 February 2006). "Search News Blogging at Search Engine Watch". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  22. Makari, Reem (17 October 2024). "Semrush acquires MarTech.org and Search Engine Land's parent company". Campaign. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  23. Schwartz, Barry (11 January 2008). "Video Edition: Weekly Search Buzz Roundup: 1/11/08". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  24. "Search Buzz Video Roundup". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  25. Schwartz, Barry (1 July 2019). "Vlog Episode 1: Ryan Clutter of Horizon Media on Google Core Updates & More SEO". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  26. "Search Engine Roundtable Vlog by Barry Schwartz". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  27. Schwartz, Barry (2 December 2024). "Search Engine Roundtable's 21st Anniversary". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  28. Schwartz, Barry (4 January 2012). "Chairing SMX Israel 2012 On January 15th". RustyBrick. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  29. Schwartz, Barry (8 August 2018). "Google Medic Update: The Core Search Update Had Big Impact On Health/Medical Web Sites". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  30. Schwartz, Barry (9 March 2017). "Big Google Algorithm Fred Update Seems Links Related". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  31. Schwartz, Barry (24 March 2017). "Google Confirmed The Fred Algorithm Update". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  32. Schwartz, Barry (26 August 2026). "Google Search Rolling Out google.com/goto Tracking Parameters". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  33. "How Barry Schwartz Created RustyBrick | Search Off the Record". Google Search Central, YouTube. 14 July 2022. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  34. "Barry Schwartz Wins Search Engine Land's Outstanding Community Service". RustyBrick. 31 July 2019. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  35. "Awards given to Search Engine Roundtable". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  36. "Barry Schwartz Wins US Search Personality Award". RustyBrick. 21 December 2018. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  37. "Barry Schwartz: Top 50 Most Influential PPCers 2023". Marketing O'Clock. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  38. "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barry Schwartz (technologist)". Wikipedia. 4 to 13 January 2007. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  39. "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barry Schwartz (technologist) (2nd nomination)". Wikipedia. 13 to 22 September 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  40. "Post by Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick)". X. 29 March 2026. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  41. "Logs for Barry Schwartz (technologist)". Wikipedia. Deletion entry dated 12 April 2026, 04:17 UTC. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  42. "Post by Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe)". X. 13 April 2026. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  43. Oberstein, Mordy (16 April 2026). "Wikipedia Deletes SEO New Journalist From Site". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  44. Lovett, D. F. (17 April 2026). "The animosity between SEO and Wikipedia escalates". Edit History. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  45. Lovett, D. F. (30 July 2026). "Who deleted Barry Schwartz's Wikipedia article?". Edit History. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  46. Schwartz, Barry (20 September 2026). "Programming Note: Offline Monday For Yom Kippur 5787". Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  47. Murdock, Kerry (21 December 2022). "Q&A: Barry Schwartz, Publisher of Search Engine Roundtable". Practical Ecommerce. Retrieved 21 October 2026.

External links [edit]

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