If you missed the news in late May, internal documents related to the Google Search API were discovered online and sent to Rand Fishkin, co-founder and former CEO of Moz and co-founder and current CEO of SparkToro. As the documents were shared across the internet and analyzed by SEO experts, a few things started to become clear:
- While there are a few surprises, the documents mostly verify things we know or strongly suspected about how Google Search works.
- The documents lack context; we don’t know how much weight the different API features have or even if all of them are currently being used.
- Like most topics that elicit extreme reactions – from “Google has been lying to us!” to “there’s nothing new here” – reality is likely somewhere in the middle.
What should brands know about the Google Search API leak?
If you’re not working with the ROI Revolution SEO Team already (and you really should be), here are our top 8 things to know about the Google Search API “leak.”
- One of Google’s core ranking systems, NavBoost, changes rankings based on how users interact with search results. This is not actually new information, and it was disclosed during a case against Google in 2012 and confirmed again in 2023.
- The way that NavBoost understands user interactions is through clickstream data. Google measures bad clicks, good clicks, clicks, last longest clicks and site-wide impressions. Ultimately, Google likely rewards things like good clicks and last longest clicks as they indicate that a searcher is happy with what they clicked on.
- This is part of why user experience is so important. Your site should be fast, easy to use, and mobile-friendly. When it’s not, you are more likely to have searchers quickly leave the site, likely resulting in bad clicks.
- A contributor to user experience is high-quality, relevant, helpful content. Google has emphasized helpful content for several years now, integrating that system into the core algorithm in March 2024. We now know there is a PageQuality metric focused on rewarding the effort put into creating robust and useful content.
- Related to content quality, the API documents also reference attributes related to site topic focus and site and page embeddings. This strongly suggests that Google is looking at how focused a site is on one topic and how closely related different pages on the site are to that topic. This doesn’t mean creating a lot of cannibalistic content that confuses Google and offers nothing unique, but keeping a site focused on its core topical areas instead.
- An embedding is a way to represent something (like a word, a sentence, or an image) as a list of numbers (a vector). Think of it like giving each thing a unique code based on its characteristics. Similar things will have similar codes, making it easier for the computer to see connections.
- Backlinks still matter, but it’s not necessarily the number of links; it’s the quality and relevance of those links. In addition, people mentioning your site online – whether that be social media, a news article, or something else – can help drive engagement. Which leads me to…
- Promote your brand. People are more likely to mention, link to, and click on a brand they’ve heard of, all of which may help your rankings and organic performance. And as Google gets a better understanding of your brand and sees more searches for and clicks to your site, it may be easier to rank for more relevant non-branded terms because Google already recognizes your value.
- Prioritize long-term strategies and providing value over trying to game the system. While flooding your site with hundreds of AI-generated pages might boost traffic temporarily, it rarely lasts. And ranking #1 for 1,000 keywords doesn’t necessarily help you if those rankings aren’t driving conversions and revenue.
How is ROI handling the information from the Google Search API leak?
On the ROI Revolution SEO Team, after analyzing the leaked documents, our takeaway is not that different from what we’ve always done: By focusing on solid SEO fundamentals, we foster year-over-year growth with few negative impacts from Google core algorithm updates. But that doesn’t mean that our strategies are stagnant – just like Google’s algorithms, how we approach SEO must always change and adapt while we keep the needs of our clients and their customers first. We’re focused on testing and experimentation with quantifiable results.
Want to talk to our SEO Team about how we can help your site? Book a meeting with our team today.
Additional SEO Resources
- Google Algorithm Updates: History & Latest Changes
- 3 Replatforming Mistakes That Tank SEO-Driven Revenue
- Using AI for SEO
