Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Dana,

First, thank you for your passion about the Moz community. It's clear you care about it very deeply. I know you have choices where to give your time and talents. I'm humbled you've chosen Moz.

Second, I am so sorry for the pain that departing Mozzers are feeling. My heart goes out to each of them for the disappointment and heartbreak. I won't say "I know what they must be feeling." Doing so would be egocentric and presumptuous.

Third, I take full responsibility for the failed strategy that led us to this point. We placed a bunch of bets, and some of them did not work out like we planned. That means a bunch of stuff has to change. I made some agonizing decisions last week that I believe will get Moz on a better path. I don't think I can describe in words how sad/embarrassed/devastated/remorseful I felt when asking wonderful people, who are much more than coworkers, to leave Moz. This was not what I wanted for them or for Moz.

The community team (yes, we still have one.) is smaller now, but they are fierce and passionate about this community. We continue to have help from Moz Associates, and we're cross-training internally to deepen our bench of folks to draw from. There will undoubtedly be hiccups in the first month or so as we get things sorted out, but I can assure you that community remains important to Moz.

We lost some great folks that have deep and special connections to the community. The fact that this thread exists is a testament to the legacy they are leaving behind them. They mattered, and not having them on the team will leave a hole. Regardless, my vision for the Moz community is to remain a positive and inclusive place where marketers can help each other do their best work.

While we're leaving everything open for a vigorous discussion, I'm strongly biased to keep Q&A. It fits so well with my vision for the community. We've got a lot on our plates in the near term, but I can imagine in the longer term making some much needed technology investments in the platform to bring it up to the modern age. Thus, I hope we go beyond 'maintaining' Q&A, to actually improving it.

Looking forward to hearing suggestions, comments and concerns. Especially in the weeks and months ahead, if you feel like we're dropping the ball on something important, please let us know.

Thanks again for your passion around the Moz community.

--Sarah

Ps. I didn't use any specific names in this post because I'm not sure how individuals would feel about being 'singled out,' even for positive attention. This is a sensitive time, and I'm not quite sure how to handle that part.     I'm erring on the side of privacy.

Thanks for the candid feedback Dana.

I don't think we have to choose between having a great community OR being a SAAS leader. It's not binary. We will continue to invest in both, although with different people and emphasis in the short term.

I hope that some day you love the software as much as the community. I'll keep working hard to make that the case.  I believe in a Moz where both can thrive.

Great Question Scott. This particular domain has stumped several other people.

uk.com is not a valid cc tld.  The proper cctld for the uk is .co.uk.   What you're looking at is two-letter rootdomain on a .com.  It's just like shoes.com or anything else.   People can basically buy subdomains from the owner of the uk.com rootdomain and host their websites there.  As you can see, it's a clever strategy because they get alot of diverse incoming links from all the subdomains they sell on their root domain. Pretty clever, huh?

Thank you for writing this Robert!

I couldn't agree with you more! Building your culture is foundational. Before doing the work, it's important to talk about how to do the work. And the how is all about culture.  Are we collaborative? Transparent? Focused on solutions? Okay with failure? Willing to take risks? What's the most important thing to us? How do we want to give and take feedback? What should we do when we disagree about something important? and on and on...