Whether it’s white hat, black hat, paid links or just straight up spam, Matt Cutts is the man with the answers when it comes to search engine optimization and marketing. WebProNews caught up with Matt at last week’s PubCon in Las Vegas, and he had some interesting things to say about the future of SEO/SEM and Google’s move toward becoming a comprehensive social media portal and also offered further insight on his specific objectives when attending events such as PubCon.Matt also reminisces about the evolution of SEM in recent years, noting that the emphasis has shifted from traditional marketing approaches and has gravitated toward a more social and contextual medium. As this trend continues, the less desirable techniques of affiliate spam and paid links are going by the wayside, while marketers with the best and most original ideas are seeing higher conversion rates as a result of their search engine marketing campaigns.