A potted history of Distilled

Distilled was started by Duncan Morris and Will Critchlow in early 2005. Distilled started life as a web development agency based in Duncan’s front room. Watching the 2005 Ashes is a favourite early memory for Duncan, but don’t mention this to Will, who spent the majority of the first year pounding the streets meeting potential clients.

Will and Duncan, relaxing in the distilled offices

Tom Critchlow presenting at Pro SEO 2010

Distilled remained exclusively a web development agency until Tom joined in mid-2007. Tom’s arrival began the migration towards becoming the SEO and PPC agency you see today. In late 2010, Distilled stopped taking on any web development clients, and in early 2011, it exited the web development game completely, transitioning its clients to Top Left Design in order to focus solely on SEO & PPC.

Rob Ousbey and his team hanging out in Seattle

In early 2010 Distilled opened an office in Seattle, with Rob Ousbey at the helm. This came after we made more formal the long-term partnership Distilled had had with SEOmoz, which allowed us to take over their SEO consulting. Distilled had been sharing offices with SEOmoz until March 2010, when they finally became too numerous for the space and moved into their own offices.

New York

Distilled opened its third office, in New York City, on June 13th 2011. The new office is headed by Tom Critchlow and contains a strong and excited new team.

The full (fake) blow-by-blow account

For this to make any sense you’ll have to read from the bottom upwards. Much like you do a twitter stream, and much like a twitter stream, it still probably won’t make that much sense.

  • Tom Critchlow – @distilled just announced plans to open a New York office. Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, indeed. (March 18th 2011 via @distilled)
  • Lynsey Little – Putting on 2 one-day link building conferences in March. The first in London and the next in New Orleans. I’ll sleep in April. (March 2011 via @distilled)
  • Distilled – Unfortunately we’ve taken the tough decision that we won’t be taking on any new Web Dev clients. (September 2010 via @distilled)
  • Rob Ousbey – Moving to Seattle to open Distilled Consulting. At least I’ll finally get to see some sunshi – oh wait. (March 2010)
  • SEOmoz – Sadly, we’re no longer taking on SEO consulting gigs. Luckily, we’re partnering with @distilled, so you still get awesome SEO experts. (1st Feb 2010)
  • Duncan Morris – The first ever London SEO Pro Training was a massive success. The events division of Distilled is born. Thanks for all the hard work, guys! (October 2009)
  • Duncan Morris – YAOM (Yet another office move). This time we have to stick around; we signed a 3 year lease. New address is 72 Cannon Street, EC4N 6AE. (April 2009)
  • Will Critchlow – The office moving spree continues. Moving to 10 Maltings Place, 169 Tower Bridge Road (July 2008)
  • Will Critchlow – Got a proper office today. Now at 151 Tower Bridge Road. Drop by if you’re in the area. (October 2007)
  • Distilled – Today we’ve launched our blog. Please subscribe and RT (March 29th 2007)
  • Distilled – Big day today. Our first employee due in any minute now… (March 19th 2007)
  • Duncan Morris – Finally got a decent company name. @willcritchlow and I are now Distilled Ltd. (December 20th 2006)
  • Will Critchlow – Woop! We’ve got a bigger office and this one has a window! Still in St. John’s Crypt, so moving should be simple. (November 23rd 2006)
  • Duncan Morris – Hey @willcritchlow I’ve found us an office in St. John’s Crypt. But will it be too creepy? (April 11th 2006)
  • Will Critchlow – I’ve just quit my job to start a business with @duncanmorris. So excited. (24th March 2005)
  • Duncan Morris – Finally finished v1 of our CMS. (2004)
  • Will Critchlow – Launched our first client website today, so excited. Calling our ‘company’ WandD. (2001)
  • Will Critchlow – Check out the awesome website I just created with @duncanmorris. WDNetwork is gonna be ace. (1997 via MemoryLane)
  • Duncan Morris – @willcritchlow WOOO! The finals of the national schools’ basketball championship! 1995 is the best year ever! (1995)
  • Will Critchlow – @duncanmorris Hey, great to meet you at St. Aidan’s High School today. Always great to talk to a fellow hoops fan, especially in Harrogate. (1990)