Leaked documents have revealed discrepancies between Google's official statements and the actual process of its search algorithm.
The 2,500-page leak was first reported by SEO expert Rand Fishkin and provided a rare and controversial glimpse into the inner workings of Google search, which had gone largely unscrutinized for 26 years.
Leaked documents show how Google search works
Gizmodo reports that the leak, which was brought to Fishkin's attention by Erfan Azimi, who discovered the API documentation on GitHub, revealed important details about Google's search ranking factors.
These documents contain information on 14,000 ranking features that are of great significance to SEO professionals and website owners.
In an email to Gizmodo, Fishkin pointed out a major concern: “I think the biggest takeaway is that there is a discrepancy between what Google representatives say and what Google's search engine actually does.”
Google representatives have made statements about the company's algorithms over the years, but the leaked documents seem to contradict those statements.
Shocking SEO revelations from Google leak
One of the most shocking revelations is that Google uses website authority scores, something the company has previously denied, meaning users are more likely to find results from larger sites rather than finding the best results from smaller sites.
Another striking feature is “homepagePagerankNs,” which suggests that the prominence of a website's homepage can positively impact the rankings of all its pages.
Google's Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (EEAT) guidelines have also proven to be less influential than publicly acknowledged, although documents indicate that Google does track authorship information, particularly for news and scientific content.
Additionally, the discovery of the “NavBoost” system, which measures clicks to boost rankings, confirmed long-standing suspicions that click-through rates influence search results. This finding contradicts past statements by Google representatives who have said that using clicks directly to influence rankings is a mistake.
Related article: Google study reveals how AI-powered misinformation spreads at lightning speed
How search algorithms have dominated small publishers
The leak also mentions the existence of features like “smallPersonalSite,” which suggests that Google categorizes and potentially biases small personal websites.
“A lot of small sites are going under right now,” SEO expert Mike King told Gizmodo, noting that small sites are seeing a huge drop in traffic.
That has raised concerns that Google's ranking system favors larger, more established publishers and squeezes out more diverse sources. “'Lyed' is a harsh word, but it's the only accurate word we can use here,” King said.
How Google Search is dealing with the pandemic and the election
Kristen Ruby, CEO of Ruby Media Group, questioned two of the leaked features, “isElectionAuthority” and “isCovidLocalAuthority,” raising questions about Google's criteria for deeming a source trustworthy on such a sensitive topic.
Luby criticised the lack of transparency, saying: “It's troubling that Google doesn't provide any context around important items in their data, like 'isElectionAuthority' or 'isCovidLocalAuthority'.”
Google acknowledged the leak
Google confirmed the authenticity of the documents to The Verge, but warned people not to draw inaccurate conclusions from them.
“We want to be careful not to make inaccurate inferences about searches based on information that is out of context, out of date or incomplete,” the spokesperson said.
They stressed that disclosing too much information could allow bad actors to abuse the system.
Stay tuned to Tech Times for the latest updates.
Related article: 2,500 internal Google documents leaked, revealing secrets of algorithms
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