Summarised by Centrist
2,500 pages of internal documentation about how Google Search operates has been leaked, some news sources report. Such a leak could benefit competitors and cost any company reliant upon Google Search for its marketing.
“Exactly how Google ranks websites has long been a mystery,” The Verge journalist Mia Sato writes. “Now, an explosive leak […] appears to offer an unprecedented look under the hood of how Search works — and suggests that Google hasn’t been entirely truthful about it for years.”
Google won’t say if the documents are legitimate, Sato reports. Sato however quotes SEO expert Rand Fishkin, who apparently received the documents and who told Sato that Google employees have for years lied about how the search algorithm works.
Sato reports that the documents address topics including what data Google collects and uses, which sites Google moves up for sensitive topics, how Google handles tiny websites, and “offers indirect hints to SEO experts about what Google seems to care about.”
Google takes issue with the concept of the documents being ‘leaked,’ Sato notes.
“Though the documents aren’t exactly a smoking gun, they provide a deep, unfiltered look at a tightly guarded black box system,” Sato concludes.
