Accidental look behind the scenes: Search leak authentic according to Google
The recently leaked information about the weighting of search results is genuine, Google admits – but warns against "false conclusions".
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Google admits that inadvertently made public information about factors in the weighting of search results is authentic. However, a Google spokesperson also warned The Verge against drawing "false conclusions" based on the "outdated and incomplete information", partly due to a lack of context. Google has always provided extensive information about how search results are weighted and which factors are included, but is also working to protect searches from manipulation attempts. He did not comment on the accusation that the documents would, to a certain extent, convict Google of lying.
Interesting for the SEO industry
The statement to the US magazine is the first time Google has publicly commented on the apparently accidental leak. The document comprises thousands of pages of documentation on Google's own search engine technology and was made public by a US entrepreneur on the weekend. The API documentation lists more than 14,000 attributes that Google uses to weight search results. However, it is not clear what weight they are given in each case. Nevertheless, the search engine optimization (SEO) industry has stated that it contains attributes that Google has always claimed are not used to weight search results. There is still no comment on this.
The documentation was online on GitHub for several days until Google removed it from there. However, this was enough for copies to be made, so the list can be investigated further. They are likely to be extremely valuable for the SEO industry and ensure that much more background knowledge is now being used to bring websites to the top of Google's results lists. At the same time, however, it is still unclear how up-to-date the information is. Google is constantly tweaking its algorithms, and even small changes can have significant consequences for certain websites or categories of websites. It therefore remains to be seen what consequences the leak will have.
(mho)