Leaked Google Docs Reveal Search Engine Secrets

Internal Google documents leaked suggest that the company may have lied about its search algorithm.

Google is the most powerful search engine in the world – so much so that it has become a topic the largest antitrust lawsuit in the US in the 21st century. Search rankings can help determine whether a business will succeed or fail.

This week, SEO experts shared 2,500 pages of documents from Google’s search department. Documents detailing the data Google collects from websites and users suggest that Google may use information such as Chrome browser data to rank websites, which would contradict public statements about how its rankings work. Google confirmed the authenticity of the documents to The Verge Thursday. The company did not immediately respond to Quartz’s request for comment or to questions about the nature of the documents.

“The Google search engine is one of the most secret and closely guarded black boxes in the world,” said SEO expert Rand Fishkin, who released the documents online. “No leak of this scale and detail has been reported from Google Search in the last quarter of a century.”

“I feel a deep obligation to share information about how the world’s dominant search engine works, especially information that Google would rather not say.”

Fishkin and his colleague, SEO expert Mike King, cautioned that the documents do not clearly show how search rankings work, but “(in)all, thanks to this leak, we now have a clearer picture of what is taken into account, which can provide information what we are focusing on and what we have ignored as we continue to develop SEO,” King said.

“Google’s public statements are likely not intended to be an intentional lie, but rather to deceive would-be spammers (as well as many legitimate SEOs) into misleading us from its impact on search results,” he continued.