While Matt Cutts remains on leave, his position as head of web spam has been taken up by an unknown Google employee

After taking leave in July of last year, Matt Cutts extended his time-out in October (ten long years of fighting spam can really take it out of you!). In the meantime an individual not yet named by Google has been manning the spam team.

While Matt Cutts had always acted as a spokesperson for Google, educating webmasters and providers of SEO services on anti-spam policies, the new head of spam as not assumed this particular aspect of the role.

Being anonymous has perhaps helped keep aspects of Google’s anti-spam strategy a secret, and has prevented the new head from being treated as the go-to scape-goat every time there is an update or string of manual reviews which decimate the rankings of many webmasters.

Cutts however was also very popular with many SEO’s, as he was able to provide advice with a certain charm and charisma that many will miss. In the mean-time there have been a variety of different Googlers offered in his place on separate subjects to answer questions in Hangouts to help keep webmasters up-to speed.

Are you happy to see there is someone new at the head of the anti-spam team, or are you happy to see Cutts take a back seat? Let us know in the comments below.