A massive leak of Google Search documents has revealed the ranking algorithm's inner workings.

Thanks to a cache of leaked Google papers, we now have an unrivaled view into Google Search, highlighting some of the key components Google considers when determining content ranking.

What took place? An automated bot known as Yoshi-code-bot published thousands of documents (2500) on Github on March 13. The documents appear to originate from Google's internal Content API Warehouse. The co-founder of SparkToro, Rand Fishkin, was given access to these records in earlier months.

Why it matters to us. For SEOs who are knowledgeable about it all, this insight into Google's potential ranking system is priceless. One of the greatest stories of 2023 was the unparalleled peek at Yandex Search ranking variables that we were given via a leak.

This leak of a Google document? It is probably going to be one of the most significant stories in Google Search and SEO history.

What’s inside?

Here’s what we know about the internal documents:

• Current: The documentation indicates this information is accurate as of March.
• Ranking features: 2,596 modules are represented in the API documentation with 14,014 attributes.
• Weighting: The documents did not specify how any of the ranking features are weighted –?just that they exist.
• Twiddlers: These are re-ranking functions that “can adjust the information retrieval score of a document or change the ranking of a document,” according to King.
• Demotions: Content can be demoted for a variety of reasons, such as A link doesn’t match the target site. SERP signals indicate user dissatisfaction. Product reviews.Location.Exact match domains.Porn
• Change history: Google keeps a copy of every version of every page it has ever indexed. Meaning, that Google can “remember” every change ever made to a page. However, Google only uses the last 20 changes of a URL when analyzing links.

Links matter. Shocking, I know. Link diversity and relevance remain key, the documents show. And PageRank is still very much alive within Google’s ranking features. PageRank for a website’s homepage is considered for every document.

• This doesn’t prove Google spokespeople have lied about links not being a “top 3 ranking factor” or that links matter less for ranking. Two things can be true at once. Again, we don’t know how any of these features are weighted.

Successful clicks matter. This should not be a shocker, but if you want to rank well, you need to keep creating great content and user experiences, based on the documents. Google uses a variety of measurements, including?badClicks, goodClicks, lastLongestClicks, and unsquashedClicks.

Also, longer documents may get truncated, while shorter content gets a score (from 0-512) based on originality. Scores are also given to Your Money Your Life content, like health and news.

What does it all mean?

• “[Y]ou need to drive more?successful?clicks using a broader set of queries and earn more link diversity if you want to continue to rank. Conceptually, it makes sense because a very strong piece of content will do that. A focus on driving more qualified traffic to a better user experience will send signals to Google that your page deserves to rank.”

Brand matters. Fishkin’s big takeaway? Brand matters more than anything else:

• “If there was one universal piece of advice I had for marketers seeking to broadly improve their organic search rankings and traffic, it would be: ‘Build a notable, popular, well-recognized brand in your space, outside of Google search.'”

Entities matter. Authorship lives. Google stores author information associated with the content and tries to determine whether an entity is the author of the document.

SiteAuthority: Google uses something called “siteAuthority”.

• Google told us something like this existed in 2011, after the Panda update launched, stating publicly that “low-quality?content?on part of a site can impact a site’s ranking as a whole.”
• However, Google has denied having a website authority score in the years since then.

Chrome Data. A module called ChromeInTotal indicates that Google uses data from its Chrome browser for ranking.

Whitelists. A couple of modules indicate Google whitelists certain domains related to elections and COVID-19 – isElectionAuthority and isCovidLocalAuthority. Though we’ve long known Google (and Bing) have “exception lists” when “specific algorithms inadvertently impact websites.”

Small sites. Another feature is a small personal site – for a small personal site or blog. King speculated that Google could boost or demote such sites via a Twiddler. However, that remains an open question. Again, we don’t know for certain how much these features are weighted.

Other interesting findings. According to Google’s internal documents:

• Freshness matters – Google looks at dates in the byline (bylineDate), URL (syntacticDate), and on-page content (semanticDate).
• To determine whether a document is or isn’t a core topic of the website, Google vectorizes pages and sites, then compares the page embeddings (siteRadius) to the site embeddings (siteFocusScore).
• Google stores domain registration information (RegistrationInfo).
• Page titles still matter. Google has a feature called titlematchScore that is believed to measure how well a page title matches a query.
• Google measures the average weighted font size of terms in documents (avgTermWeight) and anchor text.

The source. Erfan Azimi , CEO and director of SEO for digital marketing agency EA Eagle Digital, posted a video , claiming responsibility for sharing the documents with Fishkin. Azimi is not employed by Google.

What’s in the docs?

Here, you’ll find more than 2,500 pages of API documentation containing 14,014 attributes (API features) that appear to come from Google’s internal Content API Warehouse. Many of these attributes play an important role in Google’s ranking process.

However, this documentation doesn’t show the weight of particular elements in the search ranking algorithm. It also doesn’t indicate which elements are used in the ranking systems. But, it does show incredible details about the data Google collects.

Here’s an example of the document format:

Google myths revealed

To minimize manipulation of search results, the Google team has closely guarded the details of how their algorithms work and what truly influences rankings.

And now, thanks to the leaked information, we’re faced with what we have. Many claims that Google representatives once made about various aspects of search engine optimization have turned out to be untrue. Much of the leaked data directly contradicts Google’s official and public statements.

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular myths debunked by the leaked documentation.

Domain Authority

Google spokespeople have said numerous times that Google doesn’t use domain authority to rank pages.

Sandbox

Google has repeatedly claimed that there is no such thing as a “sandbox” for new sites, meaning their age does not affect their ranking. John Mueller stated this in 2019.

He also said in 2017 that domain age does not influence rankings in Google’s search results.

Leaked documentation mentions a hostAge attribute used “to sandbox fresh spam in serving time.” This fact fully contradicts Google’s denial of a sandbox for new websites.

Chrome data

Matt Cutts claimed previously that Google does not use Chrome data for search ranking or quality purposes.?

Leaked documentation shows that Chrome data is used by Google for ranking. For example, it is used to generate the Sitelinks SERP feature. Another module related to page quality scores includes a site-level measure of views from Chrome.

Links

Links remain important for Google, with metrics like sourceType indicating a loose relationship between the value of a page and its indexing location.

This means the higher the tier, the more valuable the link. Pages considered “fresh” are also high quality. That is, getting rankings from highly ranking pages and new pages yields better ranking performance. This could also be why websites generating links from fresh high-quality pages at scale see more benefit than traditional link earning, where links may come from outdated content.

In this context, it’s also worth mentioning PageRank, which remains relevant, as evidenced by the leaked documentation. The data shows that Google decides how to value a link based on how much they trust the homepage. Homepage PageRank is considered for all pages.

As always, in your link-building strategy, you should focus on the quality and relevance of your links and not just the volume.

Content

As for the content, there are several interesting points in this documentation. Let’s take a quick look at them.

• Short content is scored for originality.

Google evaluates the originality of short content and gives it an OriginalContentScore (from 0 to 512). Therefore, it is likely involved in the GSC functionality of defining thin content, which is not just a matter of content length.

• Google is focused on fresh content.

The documents show Google’s attempts to associate dates with pages. The following attributes prove this: bylineDate (the explicitly set date on the page), syntacticDate (an extracted date from the URL or in the title), and semanticDate (date derived from the content of the page).

Authors

Google places heavy emphasis on E-E-A-T. If you ever have any doubts about the importance of content authorship for ranking, this documentation dispels them. It indicates that Google explicitly stores author information.

Panda algorithm

According to the documentation , to determine quality content, Google uses a scoring modifier based on user behavior and external links, applying it at various levels (domain, subdomain, and subdirectory).?

The document pays significant attention to NavBoost’s data (or click data), which focuses on relevancy and user intent. The documentation proves that the search engine uses it in ranking.?

Google’s documentation clarifies that Panda is far simpler than we thought. You just need to create high-quality, relevant content that receives many user clicks. Focusing on getting more relevant traffic and improving user experience will show Google that your page should rank higher.

Demotions

The document also contains information about the reasons for ranking drops. Various demotions are applied for issues like:

• Anchor mismatch
• SERP dissatisfaction
• Exact match domains
• Spammy product reviews
• Porn content, etc.

This information isn’t groundbreaking, but it will help you confirm that you’re on the right track and remind you what to avoid.

Summary

Numerous skepticisms regarding Google's internal operations were allayed (or proven) by this disclosure.

While Google wants to support and advise webmasters, it's crucial to realize that they also take precautions to prevent providing possibilities for spammers to influence search results.

The greatest approach to obtaining insightful knowledge and a thorough comprehension of SEO is via practice and firsthand experience. It's imperative to thoroughly assess any outside advice, even if it comes from Google.