This past weekend information leaked from Google about how their algorithm works.
Yes, really!
SEOs have been diving into this leak and gleaning all the information that we can to help inform strategies going forward.
There is a LOT to break down in the leak, and I’m not going to cover even half of it, but I’ve pulled out some key points that are most relevant to bloggers and put them into this post to help you dig through the noise and speculation that is happening around these leaks online.
Did this leak change everything?
In most cases, no.
This leak re-affirmed a lot of strategies that I have been teaching in my audits for years. There are some points that Google has long tried to deny are ranking factors or that they are tracking these data points. The leak this week has shown that many of those data points are in fact, being tracked by Google and appear to be a part of the ranking algorithm.
There are some classifiers that no one knew existed (but many of us suspected) that have been confirmed to be real, BUT the leak did not include information about how the classifier is being used or if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Here is a breakdown of 12 key points for bloggers from the data leaks.
1. Click Data
This is something that google has denied for ages, but if you have ever gotten an audit from me, you know I am BIG about clicks and CTR. And now I feel vindicated.
Clicks in search ARE a ranking signal and with details from the leak, it looks like its quite significant. As I always identify in my audits- if you are ranking but not getting clicks this will hurt you (in addition to being a missed opportunity!).
Google actively tracks things like clicks, time on page, user behavior etc. It makes sense that they do, in order to provide the best search experience, it is just wild that they have been denying it.
If you have been doing SEO with me, this doesn’t change our strategy at all, because we have been working on increasing CTR regardless of what G says, forever. Now I just finally have my proof of why this is so vital.
2. Site Authority
Google does have a site authority metric – Google has claimed forever that they don’t have a domain/site authority score but this leak shows that they do.
What this leak does NOT show is how that score works or how heavily (or if) it is used as a ranking factor.
3. Authorship
This is another thing that I have been having my clients lean in on over the past two years despite google’s gaslighting, and it turns out authorship is a factor google is closely tracking and having your author data clear and prominent does seem to be helping you in the ranking algorithm based on data from this leak.
4. Post Titles
Your post title is extremely important and your keyword should be as close to the front of the title as possible.
Again this has been something discussed for awhile but now confirmed in this leak.
5. STAY ON TOPIC
Yes, I’m yelling because I am happy to see another thing that I constantly preach in my audits, confirmed by google. Most of season 3 of the podcast has been about this and if you have gotten an audit from me in the last 6mos we went oher it extensively!
Google is measuring whether you stay on your topic or not. And you will lose rank if you veer off topic into things that are not relevant to your keyword’s search intent.
6. Google Chrome Data
Google said they dont use chrome data for search but turns out they do. Not much for us to do with this, but it’s good to know.
7. External links
We know this but it was reiterated and confirmed with data from this leak. Having lots of and very diverse links coming to your site from across the internet helps.
Not just the same few sites linking to you, but high quality & diverse backlinks with strong anchor text. Links are also more highly valued if they are “fresh” (recent) and from high level sites.
8. Demotions
There was a lot of information about demotions in rank, but many of them were not relevant to the average good-faith blogger. There was one that was key that I wanted to bring up.
There appears to be a demotion in place (where you can lose rank) if your site is hard to navigate.
Make sure your site is built for your target user and it is easy to get around. You should NOT need to educate your readers on how to use your site. Make it easy for them (and google bot!) to get around and understand what your site is about.
I’ve done several content audits over the past couple of years that we have talked about this, because navigation is a key user experience factor that we knew would send good signals to Google like time spent on page and allow Google bot to easily crawl your site.
What we’ve learned in this leak is that it’s even more vital that we first thought, and if I send you an audit with spare notes on how to improve your site navigation, definitely go back and make those changes ASAP. This is something Google is measuring and you want to be sure that they find your site easy to navigate so it doesn’t harm you.
9. Bold links
Google is tracking things like if you bold a link or put it in a larger font or underline it. This is such old school SEO but it looks like it is still a factor
NOTE please do not go bold all your links, but if you want to emphasize one or two key things in a post, this can help.
10. Not all Internal Links are Counted
We have talked about this in a few audits lately too. Do not over optimize and link to everything or you end up devaluing EVERY link on the page. Link for users strategically with SEO in mind. Do not link everything you possibly in every post.
11. Dates
Dates are important and you should be displaying them transparently
12. “Small Personal Sites”
There is a small personal site classifier – we dont know what this means or what google is doing with it but it is VERY curious especially with lots of small sites being hit lately. You will hear a lot of speculation about this one in the SEO and blogging communities, but proceed with caution, this leak provided virtually no information about this classifier other than it’s existence. It could be something Google uses to demote sites. It also could be something they use to make sure small personal sites don’t get swept away with small spam sites. No one knows. We only know that this exists, everything else is pure speculation.
What was your biggest takeaway from the leak so far?
If you need help cleaning up your site, staying on topic, avoiding demotions and finding the path forward to GROW IN SEO in 2024, let’s schedule an audit, asap! I will show you what posts are most vulnerable to ai takeovers. What content to lean into to reach your goals and create a plan to help you win back lost keywords or gain new, better ones. Schedule your audit today.