The biggest discoveries in the Google Search leak

One thing right off the bat: Google Search’s algorithm didn’t leak and SEO experts don’t suddenly have all the answers. But the information leaked this week – a collection of thousands of internal Google documents – is still enormous. It’s an unprecedented look into the normally closely guarded inner workings of Google.

Perhaps the most notable revelation from the 2,500 documents is that they suggest that Google representatives have misled the public in the past by discussing how the Internet’s biggest gatekeeper evaluates and ranks its search engine’s content.

The way Google ranks content is a black box: Websites depend on search traffic to survive, and many will do anything – and great expense – to beat the competition and get to the top of the results. Better ranking means more website visits, which means more money. As a result, website operators hang on to every word Google publishes and every social media post from research employees. Their word is considered gospel, which in turn reaches everyone who uses Google to find things.

Over the years, Google spokespeople repeatedly denied that user clicks influence website rankings, for example – but the leaked documents note various types of clicks that users make and indicate that they feed into ranking pages in search. U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Prosecution Testimony Previously Revealed a ranking factor called Navboost which uses searchers’ clicks to elevate content in search.

“For me, the larger goal is that even more public statements from Google about what they collect and how their search engine works have strong evidence against them,” said Rand Fishkin, a veteran of the search engine optimization (SEO) industry. ). On the edge via email.

The leak first spread after SEO experts Fish skin It is Mike King published some of the content of the leaked documents earlier this week, along with accompanying analysis. The leaked API documents contain repositories full of information and definitions from data collected by Google, some of which can inform how web pages rank in search. Google initially dodged questions about the authenticity of the leaked documents before confirming their veracity on Wednesday.

“We caution against making inaccurate assumptions about Search based on information that is out of context, out of date, or incomplete,” said Google spokesperson Davis Thompson. On the edge in an email on Wednesday. “We share extensive information about how Search works and the types of factors our systems evaluate, while working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation.”

There is no indication in the documents about how different attributes are weighted, for example. It’s also possible that some of the attributes mentioned in the documents – like an identifier for “small personal sites” or a demotion for product reviews, for example – may have been implemented at some point but have since been phased out. They may also have never been used to rank websites.

“We don’t necessarily know how [the factors named] are being used, in addition to the different descriptions of them. But even though they are somewhat sparse, there is a lot of information for us,” says King. “What are the aspects we should think about more specifically when we are creating websites or optimizing websites?”

The suggestion that the world’s largest search platform doesn’t base search result rankings on how users engage with content seems absurd. But the repeated denials, carefully worded responses by companies, and industry publications carrying these claims have unquestionably made it a controversial topic of debate among SEO marketers.

Another important point highlighted by Fishkin and King concerns how Google can use Chrome data in its search rankings. Google Search Representatives They said they don’t use Chrome at all for classification, but leaked documents suggest this may not be true. One section, for example, lists “chrome_trans_clicks” telling you which links from a domain appear below the main page in search results. Fishkin interprets this to mean that Google “uses the number of clicks on pages in Chrome browsers and uses that to determine the most popular/important URLs on a site, which go into calculating which ones to include in the sitelinks feature.”

There are more than 14,000 attributes mentioned in the documents, and researchers will be digging for weeks for clues contained within the pages. There is mention of “Twiddlers”, or rating adjustments implemented outside of major system updates, which increase or demote content according to certain criteria. Elements of web pages, such as who the author is, are mentioned, as are measures of the “authority” of sites. Fishkin points out that there are many things that are also not represented in the documents, such as information about AI-generated search results.

So what does all this mean for everyone except the SEO industry? On the one hand, expect anyone who operates a website to read about this leak and try to understand it. Many SEOs are throwing things at the wall to see what works, and publishers, ecommerce companies, and businesses will likely create various experiments to try to test some of the docs’ suggestions. I imagine that as this happens, websites may start to look, feel or read a little differently – all as these industries try to make sense of this wave of new but still vague information.

“Journalists and publishers of SEO and Google Search information need to stop uncritically repeating Google’s public statements and adopt a much harsher and more contradictory view of the search giant’s representatives,” says Fishkin. “When publications repeat Google’s claims as if they were fact, they are helping Google tell a story that is only useful to the company and not to professionals, users or the public.”