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The leak of 2,500 pages of internal Google documents reveals search algorithms. The authors of the leak believe that Google was not completely honest when it talked about this for many years
Rand Fishkin of SparkToro, who has worked in SEO for more than a decade, claims that the source shared 2,500 pages of documents with him in the hope that publicizing the leak would help counter Google's “lies” about how the search algorithm works. The documents describe the Google Search API and provide other information that is available to employees.
Based on the post, Google made the data publicly available, probably by accident, via GitHub starting on March 27th. The explanatory documents were deleted on May 7. However, because they were indexed by a third-party service, a copy remains available even after deletion.
The data Fishkin shared is technical and more understandable for SEO professionals. The leaked content also doesn't necessarily prove that Google uses the specific data and signals it mentions for search rankings. Rather, the leak identifies what data Google collects online and offers indirect clues to SEO experts about what Google is paying attention to.
Certain information in the documents contradicts public statements by Google representatives. Fishkin said the company did not deny the leak, but that the employee asked him to change some of the language in the note regarding how the event was characterized.
Google's secret search algorithm has spawned an entire industry of marketers who closely follow Google's public guidelines. The common, often nasty tactic has led to a common narrative that Google's search results are deteriorating, inundated with junk that sites create to get seen.
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One example is whether Google Chrome data is even used to rank sites. Google representatives have repeatedly noted that they do not use Chrome data to rank pages, but Chrome is specifically mentioned in sections about how sites appear in Search.
Another question that arises is what role EEAT plays in the ranking. EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness, and is Google's metric used to evaluate the quality of search results. Google has previously said that EEAT is not a ranking factor. Fishkin notes that he did not find many references to EEAT in the documents.
Details how Google collects author data from a page and determines whether the person on the page is the author. Some of the documents say that this field was “primarily designed and customized for news articles … but also filled in for other content (for example, scientific articles).” While this doesn't confirm that authorship clearly impacts rankings, it does show that Google is at least tracking this attribute. Google officials have previously insisted that author data is something site owners should do for readers, not Google, because it doesn't affect rankings.
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