Security News Google Search algorithm leak - 2500 page document, does Google lie?

[Ink]

Content source

https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/28/24166177/google-search-ranking-algorithm-leak-documents-link-seo

Google’s search algorithm is perhaps the most consequential system on the internet, dictating what sites live and die and what content on the web looks like. But how exactly Google ranks websites has long been a mystery, pieced together by journalists, researchers, and people working in search engine optimization.

Now, an explosive leak that purports to show thousands of pages of internal documents 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. So far, Google hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment on the legitimacy of the documents.

But some details in the leaked documents call into question the accuracy of Google’s public statements regarding how Search works.

One example cited by Fishkin and King is whether Google Chrome data is used in ranking at all. Google representatives have repeatedly indicated that it doesn’t use Chrome data to rank pages, but Chrome is specifically mentioned in sections about how websites appear in Search. In the screenshot below, which I captured as an example, the links appearing below the main vogue.com URL may be created in part using Chrome data, according to the documents.

 

[SpiderWeb]

I stopped using Google years ago for DDG. Recently used it during the outage and I couldn't recognize it anymore. It's 99% content farms and ads. You can't find answers to the most simple questions. I'm good. I will stick to DDG and Chat-GPT.