Many SEOs are coming to the conclusion that the alleged Google data leak was not a leak, contained no ranking algorithm secrets, was five years out of date, and showed nothing new. While that’s not how everyone feels about it, SEOs in general tend not to agree on anything.
As SEJ reported yesterday, there were indications that this was not a ranking algorithm data dump and that there were many unanswered questions.
Our take on the alleged leak was:
“At this time there is no firm evidence that this ‘leaked’ data is actually from Google Search… and is in no way related to the ranking of websites in Google Search.”
At this point we have more information and many SEOs say that information is not an algorithm data dump.
Some SEOs urge caution
While many in the search community were quick to accept the claims of a data breach at face value, others who care about the real facts warned to slow down and think first and keep your brains open to all possibilities.
Tweet from ex-Googler Pedro Dias
Ryan Jones was the first to offer a modest note of caution, advising people in a tweet to see the information objectively and without preconceived ideas.
Former Googler Pedro Dias he tweeted:
“Have no problem with shared data. And caution in interpreting some items.”
Pedro followed with another tweet to explain why he couldn’t comment specifically:
“I can only speak for myself. I think you understand why I can’t correct specific elements. What I’m saying is that context is needed and room for interpretation.”
Someone tweeted that Pedro’s response added nothing to the discussion.
Peter answered:
“I didn’t say that. All I’ve been saying is please be careful jumping to conclusions. If you think this isn’t helpful, I’m sorry.”
The ex-Googler later he tweeted on the importance of having debates:
“We remind everyone:
– It is healthy to bring logical arguments to a discussion.
– It is not healthy to expect everyone to buy opinions without discussion. Especially when it comes from data sources without context.”
Search Marketing Expert Dean Cruddance he tweeted:
“There is nothing that reveals the secret sauce.”
To what former Googler Pedro Dias answered:
“100%
But the impact of this, feeds a lot of foil and adopts a simplistic search, which is not optimal.
In the end, I think it does more harm than good. Not because of the information it contains, but because of how it will be interpreted and interpreted.”
This SEO is not buying it
As the day went on, more and more SEOs began to openly doubt the leak. Twenty-year search marketing expert Trevor Stolber (LinkedIn profile) posted his remarks about the alleged leak, saying he wasn’t “buying it.”
A part of what he published on LinkedIn:
“It’s from an outdated code base (still very interesting, but old and not used). It’s not actually from their ranking algorithm, it’s an API they use internally. We already knew most of the things that there is Good production code documentation would specify ranges and values: I don’t see any of that here Google doesn’t use DA (Domain Authority) – DA is an analogue of PR (Page Rank) which was the most prominent differentiator of Google; I’m not sure why so much attention is being paid to these nuances.”
Kristine Schachinger, another SEO I know personally as an expert, commented in that discussion that the information in the so-called leak was from 2019.
“I’ve been reading the raw dump and they’re all dated 2019 and there’s literally nothing you can glean from 90% of the pages, I totally agree.”
Others in this discussion openly questioned whether this was actually a leak and most everyone agreed that there was nothing new and advised that it was better to focus on the new AI descriptions from Google, especially since AI doesn’t follow ranking factors.
Wasn’t that a leak?
Of all the people in SEO, the person who can most be described as the father of modern SEO is Brett Tabke. He is the founder of the search marketing conference PubCon and also the founder of WebmasterWorld, which in the early days of SEO was the largest and most important SEO forum in the world. Brett is also the person who coined the acronym SERPs (for Search Engine Results Pages).
Brett spent five hours studying the data leak and then posted his observations on Facebook.
Among his observations (paraphrased):
This is not a leak. There is zero that is directly related to the algorithm, other than that it is API calls. He found nothing to indicate how any of the data could be used as part of a ranking algorithm.
Ash Nallawalla, an SEO company with over 20 years of experience commented:
“As I’ve said a few times, it’s just an API doc with a list of calls and not an algo code dump. At most, we can learn a bit more internal Google terminology.”
Google data leak: where are the facts?
It is sinking in within the SEO community that this was not the Google algorithm data leak that some had hoped it would be. In fact, it wasn’t even leaked by a Googler. And far from being algorithm secrets, many agree that there is nothing new and that it is just a distraction.
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