A leak of 2500 pages of internal Google documents reveals search algorithms. The authors of the leak believe that Google was not entirely honest when talking about it for many years.
Rand Fishkin from SparkToro, who has been working in SEO for over ten years, claims that a source shared 2500 pages of documents with him in hopes that revealing the leak will help counteract Google's "lies" about the search algorithm. The documents describe Google's search API and contain other information available to employees.
Based on the publication, Google made the data public, presumably accidentally, through GitHub, starting on March 27. Explanatory documents were removed on May 7. However, since they were indexed by a third-party service, a copy remains available even after removal.
The data shared by Fishkin is technical and more understandable for SEO professionals. The content of the leak also does not necessarily prove that Google uses specific data and signals mentioned for search ranking. Rather, the leak identifies what data Google collects online and offers indirect clues to SEO experts about what Google is paying attention to.
Some information in the documents contradicts public statements from Google representatives. Fishkin reported that the company does not deny the truthfulness of the leak, but an employee asked him to change some wording in the note regarding how the event is characterized.
Google's secret search algorithm has spawned an entire industry of marketers who closely follow Google's public guidelines. Common, often unpleasant tactics have led to a general narrative that Google search results are deteriorating, cluttered with garbage that websites create to be seen.
One example is whether Google Chrome data is used for ranking websites at all. Google representatives have repeatedly stated that they do not use Chrome data for page ranking, but Chrome is specifically mentioned in sections on how sites are displayed in Search.
Another question that arises is the role of the EAT metric in ranking. EAT stands for expertise, authority, trustworthiness, and it is a Google metric used to evaluate the quality of search results. Google representatives have previously stated that EAT is not a ranking factor. Fishkin notes that he did not find many mentions of EAT in the documents.
It is detailed how Google collects data about the author from the page and determines if the person on the page is the author. Some documents say that this field was "primarily designed and tuned for news articles ... but also filled out for other content (such as scientific articles)." While this does not confirm that authorship explicitly affects ranking, it shows that Google is at least tracking this attribute. Google representatives have previously insisted that data about authors is something that site owners should do for readers, not for Google, as it does not affect ranking.
Source: The Verge
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