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Damage Done
Now that Google has confirmed the leaked SEO documents are real, can marketers ever take them at their word again?
Damage Done.
Now that Google has confirmed the leaked SEO documents are real, can marketers ever take them at their word again?
by Tod Maffin (email • LinkedIn • social media)
Today's News
GOOGLE • Confirms Leaked API Docs Are Real
After silence for two days, Google has confirmed that a massive trove of leaked confidential search documents are real.
The leak contained 2,500 pages of internal API documentation — some of which seemed to be counter to advice it had publicly given marketers about how to rank higher.
Rand Fishkin, the SEO veteran who first published the leaked documents, told Gizmodo:
I think the biggest takeaway is that what Google’s public representatives say and what Google search engine does are two different things.
What can we believe now?
Most industry people understood that Google reps had to be somewhat vague about the specifics of what makes a page rank higher. But what bothered many people in the SEO space this week was that the leaked documents revealed ranking levers that Google reps in the past have said didn’t matter at all.
One of those elements is called smallPersonalSite . The documentation doesn’t reveal the weighting behind a site given that label, so we don’t know if Google gives such sites a penalty or a boost, and by how much — but this is a good example of a lever Google has said in the past it doesn’t factor into how a site ranks.
It’s like the NFL’s referees rewrote the rules of football halfway through the season, and you’re just finding out while playing the Super Bowl.
Google’s warning: Don’t make ‘assumptions’
As I mentioned, Google confirmed that the documents were real, but said:
We would caution against making inaccurate assumptions about Search based on out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information.
We’ve shared extensive information about how Search works and the types of factors that our systems weigh, while also working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation.
Of course Google didn’t share which parts of those documents were out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete.
This response is a perfect example of why people don’t like or trust Google.
It’s a non-statement that doesn’t address the leak, provides no value, and might well have been written by an AI trained on the past decade’s most soulless corporate messaging.
What now for Google’s reputation?
The timing of all this, of course, couldn’t have been worse for Google.
It came as the company aggressively rolled out its AI summaries for search queries — a product that pretty much everyone except Google says is not ready for prime time.
On the consumer side, it’s giving out ridiculously inaccurate advice like adding glue to pizza, and seemingly being unable to distinguish authentic content from satire sites like The Onion or shitposts found on Reddit.
For marketers, it’s almost worse — the next evolution of Google’s zero-click strategy: Giving users answers while downplaying links to web pages and stores. Links that marketers rely on to drive traffic and build business.
One thing is clear: this leak, and now Google’s response to it, have not helped the company during one of its most pivotal times.
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