Google's search algorithms all dominate the Internet As the dominant search engine on the planet, search rankings make or break websites that everyone is fighting to try and claim the top spot, while these algorithms are heavily guarded secrets, the leaked documents claim to shed some light on how Google search works

SparkToro claims to have accessed more than 2,500 API documents that it claims originated from Google's internal "Content API Warehouse" And in these documents there is something that appears to be an important detail of Google's search algorithm The Android Authority notes that these documents don't show how searches rank different websites or how they handle the characteristics of different sites, but it seems to show what google actually collects in its bid to provide users with the most useful search results

Interestingly, the site also claims that these documents were leaked to GitHub on May 3, but will only be deleted But for now, SparkToro is working with iPullRank to try to figure out what all these apis are intended for

Getting a glimpse of how search does that thing is a very big problem Google does not explicitly acknowledge the leak, but it has all been confirmed that the document is legitimate In a statement to The Verge, the company notes that people should not make "inaccurate assumptions about searches based on out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information" That is, even though the documents are legal, they are no longer relevant At least According to Google

Google regularly tips and bests for websites to help them improve and optimize their content for better search but it never tells people what to do, more likely to come out and avoid people trying to game the system It happens, and Google's ongoing updates to the algorithm seem to be trying to counter this kind of activity, in part

Google has always stated that it advises "people-first content" that focuses on readers and users rather than search engines There is a general philosophy, "EEAT" — or expertise, authority and reliability This is all pretty self-evident But the leaked documents suggest that Google actually takes a different approach 

Analysis by SparkToro and iPullRank of these documents suggests that different factors may be involved These include domain permissions, chrome data, clicks as a measure of success, by-line authors, and isolating new sites that have not yet developed search engine trust - all of which are factors that Google has refused to use in the past While it makes sense for Google to want to keep its flagship product secret, these documents suggest that it is deliberately misleading

Other factors mentioned in the document are what we knew in the past Just as the fact that content freshness is important, links and links to other relevant content are also important Changes in branding and history also play an important role, but demotion can occur because links don't match their target, presence, or pornography So the more you like Google, the more you see your content

Still, Google is sticking to the gun, and we'll have to see how this story will develop over the next few weeks because we're sure these documents are outdated, inaccurate, or not a big picture of how Google Search works