He graduated from the University of California, Irvine, and was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register.

Later he married Lorna Harris, and lived for several years in Chitterne, a small village in England.

He retired from his position as chief content officer at Third Door Media in June 2017.

[2] In October 2017, Sullivan announced that he would be joining Google as an adviser at its search division.

Shortly after beginning in November that year, he sold it for an undisclosed amount to MecklerMedia (now Jupitermedia).

Search Engine Watch was considered by Matt Cutts of Google as "must reading", and Tim Mayer of Yahoo!

Search Engine Land stories have been cited numerous times by other media outlets.