The Google Algorithm has Leaked

Meredith's husband: 0:24

Some pretty big news, oh, really, in the world of SEO and Google, specifically Google. Oh, if I said to you Google algorithm, what does that mean? What does that phrase mean to you? The Google algorithm?

Meredith: 0:38

That means how you appear in search engines.

Meredith's husband: 0:44

It's how. It's Google's internal program that determines all the rankings.

Meredith: 0:50

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 0:50

The Google algorithm.

Meredith: 0:51

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 0:52

And it's been top secret since forever. Shh don't say anything For many, many years. It was like the Holy Grail. It was like this big, huge. That's all SEO was about was like trying to figure out what is in the Google algorithm. Yeah, out what is in the Google algorithm? Yeah, and I think it's. I think the name algorithm makes it seem overly simplistic, makes it seem like it's short, but it's got to be the most, one of the most massive programs.

Meredith: 1:20

I think algorithm is, I mean, but also doesn't it? Isn't it always changing and evolving?

Meredith's husband: 1:27

Parts of it are. I mean, yes, well, it's so massive that parts of it are. I mean yes, well, it's so massive that parts of it have to be. I mean they're you know?

Meredith: 1:34

so, anyway, the reason I'm asking yeah is because there's been a leak. What?

Meredith's husband: 1:40

there's been a leak. Somebody leaked part not the whole thing, but part of the google algorithm somebody was angry, somebody. I don't know. I don't know what it was, I don't know why.

Meredith: 1:53

There's got to be a reason, a personal reason.

Meredith's husband: 1:56

Well, they know who the leaker is.

Meredith: 1:58

Oh.

Meredith's husband: 1:59

I mean, the guy came out and if it's him, if this is true, who knows? Maybe this guy was just making this up, but a guy claims to have leaked the, the information, the, the information that was leaked has been verified, so it does appear to be real, it appears to be real and it appears to be current, so it's not like leaking data from 20 years ago.

Meredith: 2:18

Very exciting, we're on the edge you know?

Meredith's husband: 2:22

yes, that's the kind of kind of anyway. This guy claims to have leaked the data and, under the guise of like, shedding light on all the Google lies, all the lies that Google has been telling. They've been lying about everything, have they? And the headlines? So the leak was, I think, about three or four weeks ago. I see it in the headlines all the time. I realize my own algorithm feeds me stories about SEO, probably doesn't feed everybody stories about SEO, so you might not be seeing these headlines.

Meredith's husband: 2:54

If you do see any headlines, they will likely be things. They will have something to do with the Google lies. Wow, it's very sensational.

Meredith: 3:03

I would think so.

Meredith's husband: 3:05

And this guy's video was like he took. He, I don't know. I watched this video. It seemed to me this was a load of shit, but he seemed to take like a very solemn stance, like he was a whistleblower, and he said phrases like it's time for this to come to light and all these things. Meanwhile, he's also he's a former Google employee. Duh of course, and he has you know, is starting his own SEO agency.

Meredith's husband: 3:32

No, so I wonder. I mean, this is really you know, talk about good publicity when you're starting an SEO agency.

Meredith: 3:40

Yeah, this is the way to do it, holy cow, like you know.

Meredith's husband: 3:43

if that's his game plan, I mean props to him for doing that.

Meredith: 3:46

Well done. Sure enough, everybody's got to have a gimmick.

Meredith's husband: 3:51

So the leak happened at three or four weeks ago. Headlights have been coming out Now the size of the leak. I don't know what percentage of the algorithm has leaked, but people are still going through it. Like I've seen it. I've seen some of the raw data. I can't understand any of it, like it's a really engineering code. I've heard people who have even more technical knowledge than I do say it's like data for map nerds, like Google Maps. It's like stuff like how Google Maps, how Google Street View, interprets repeating symbols such as a crosswalk.

Meredith's husband: 4:27

A crosswalk is like a repeating symbol, so it's. How does Google identify and determine things like that, like not earth-shattering stuff?

Meredith: 4:36

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 4:36

And not interesting really.

Meredith: 4:38

Oh well, maybe it could be interesting for Sort of.

Meredith's husband: 4:41

Who knows? Anyway, in the leak there are almost 15,000 ranking features described. I don't know exactly what that means.

Meredith: 4:53

But is he going to share it? Oh, he has shared it.

Meredith's husband: 4:58

I'll get to that in a second, he has shared it.

Meredith: 4:59

It's all out there.

Meredith's husband: 5:01

But we need to wait for people to translate it.

Meredith: 5:06

Can Google AI translate it?

Meredith's husband: 5:09

There's almost 15,000 ranking features whatever that means I'm not exactly sure and twenty five or twenty six hundred modules. So twenty six hundred modules with a bunch of features within each one. That's all kind of cryptic to me. I don't know what that means, but it seems to suggest it's pretty big. There's a lot of information there. But it seems to suggest it's pretty big, there's a lot of information there. So a guy named Rand Fishkin is probably the most well-known person in the SEO industry. He's pretty cool. Actually, I have to say everything I know about him and what I've seen him and he's really cool. One of his business partners is going. They're going through the data now and they have a webinar scheduled for the 27th of this month.

Meredith's husband: 5:53

June 27th, to kind of explain.

Meredith: 5:57

Oh, have you reserved your seat?

Meredith's husband: 5:59

I have. Good job have you? Not yet Now some people have some people have already sort of dug in and tried to translate some of this, so I'll go over a few of the things and I'm going to try to talk about some of these lies the big lies that people are saying are now uncovered.

Meredith: 6:22

Google's quote lies yeah, google's lies.

Meredith's husband: 6:25

So the tone of these articles and the headlines is that oh, google is super evil. They've been lying to us and that is very much not the case.

Meredith: 6:35

Yeah, that's really not the case, so.

Meredith's husband: 6:36

I'm going to go through a few of these. I think we're going to do another episode after June 27th after somebody explains to me and kind of summarize what you might be able to take away and do as a result, if any helpful information has been uncovered. So one of these Google lies is that Google has always said not always, but Google has said spokespeople for Google have said they don't have an authority score.

Meredith: 7:05

So websites like.

Meredith's husband: 7:06

SEMrush and Moz and all these other sites they often assign. They have some way to rank websites and say this website has an authority score of 80.

Meredith: 7:17

Sorry, buster, it's okay.

Meredith's husband: 7:19

So I guess it's been uncovered in this thing that there is some sort of authority score. Well, yeah, duh, of course there is, and I don't know the details, but that's not really surprising. But the fact that they're making a big deal like, oh, google said they don't have an authority score, and they do have an authority score, they're evil, I don't know.

Meredith: 7:39

Comparatively, I could name Okay, maybe social media, okay, okay, that's yeah, maybe social media, okay. So there's another one, there's a few more.

Meredith's husband: 7:45

I bet They've also. Google has also said they don't use clicks for rankings, right, so they don't use the number of clicks that a website gets to help determine what to do, how high it should be in the rankings.

Meredith's husband: 7:57

Okay, Evidently they do use clicks in some aspect and they have said they don't use clicks, but they've at the same time in the past said they kind of do. And I think what's dangerous here? And people have always asked me, or they seem to think that if you click on a website, if you sit at home and click on your own website over and over and over, you're going to push your site up in the rankings. That is way not true. That is way not true. That is way not true.

Meredith: 8:24

Pretty clearly.

Meredith's husband: 8:25

And people have said, oh, they're going to pay people in China to sit there and click on their website. Way, not true. That is not what happens. Now. What might happen is if, hey, Google displays a website on, say, the first page of search results, say 100,000 times, and nobody ever clicks on it, yeah, I would say yeah, like Google should probably take that into consideration.

Meredith: 8:48

I'm sure they do.

Meredith's husband: 8:50

I'm sure they do. So this is not a simple situation, but people are pointing to this one a lot. I don't think it's a very big deal.

Meredith: 8:59

No.

Meredith's husband: 9:00

I still don't think it's the case where, if a website gets a lot of clicks, it's going to go right to the top of Google. That would be a self-reinforcing situation. You'd go to the top, you'd get lots of clinks, clinks get lots of clicks because you're at the top.

Meredith's husband: 9:13

You'd stay at the top because you get lots of clicks. You get more clicks. It just doesn't make sense. Yeah, so something else is that Google has said for a long time now there is no sandbox. A sandbox would be like a kind of penalty area, so if you do something against Google guidelines, they sort of kick you out, they put you in this sandbox.

Meredith: 9:35

Okay.

Meredith's husband: 9:36

And they said there is no sandbox. Well, of course there's a sandbox. It is not. It is probably not a single sandbox for all bad websites, so they go to this sandbox but of course there is, of course there is some little shovels and pails yeah, because then people would ask well, how do you get out of the sandbox?

Meredith: 9:52

it would be this big thing.

Meredith's husband: 9:54

Of course, there is some sort of to the sidelines type of measure, that where you're not going to appear in search if you break google's guidelines, like that's a no-brainer, but people are making a big deal about that one too. Okay, they've also said google has said they don't use information from chrome, the browser, in any way to help determine rankings and evidently and this, to me, is the most interesting one, this to me is the most interesting one, this to me, would be the most egregious lie.

Meredith: 10:25

Let's say Because Google owns Chrome.

Meredith's husband: 10:27

Yes, so they should like. That would start to be or I would think it would start to look like a privacy concern if they were using your. They're not going to use your personal data with your name on it, but they might use data in aggregate to see what people are doing and where they are going. I can see where people would be concerned about that. Or perhaps you want to use a browser where what you do is not being shared in any way whatsoever.

Meredith: 10:54

Isn't that Brave.

Meredith's husband: 10:56

There are privacy browsers. Yeah, brave is one, duckduckgo is one. What was the other one? We used to use, epicenter, I don't remember, I forget. There are more and more. If you're using Google's browser, I personally I would think it's probably safe to assume that somehow your anonymized data is going to be fed to Google. I would expect that.

Meredith: 11:20

I don't think this is really On Google's search, of course, yes, yeah yeah, yeah, I don't think it's that surprising.

Meredith's husband: 11:28

I do see some concern there. If you're privacy-minded, you don't want that happening. Well then you probably should choose another browser. What?

Meredith: 11:33

if you're privacy minded, you don't want that happening. Well then, you have probably should choose another browser. What if you go on private?

Meredith's husband: 11:37

incognito, yeah, incognito, incognito, doesn't it?

Meredith: 11:40

look like I don't know what that is. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha incognito, like doesn't keep search history.

Meredith's husband: 11:49

it's not what people think it is, it it's not anonymous, it just doesn't keep history, basically.

Meredith: 11:56

But were something to go wrong, the authorities would be able to go back and track. When you said, like how to make your own beep.

Meredith's husband: 12:04

I don't know about that. An incognito? Probably not. If you're not using incognito, then probably hopefully, if you're making your own, let's not go there. I was going to say if you're going, to make your own.

Meredith: 12:15

I hope you're using All right.

Meredith's husband: 12:18

So something else is so. Google has downplayed the importance of links. We've talked about links a lot right.

Meredith: 12:27

That's how Google was.

Meredith's husband: 12:28

That's how the entire thing started was. It was built on links. Yeah, that's what set Google apart from every other search engine.

Meredith: 12:36

Just ask, jeeves.

Meredith's husband: 12:38

Yeah, really A little more recently they have kind of downplayed the importance of links because people try to spam that. There are all sorts of schemes that people use to try to get links and I think Google's saying, or trying to downplay the importance of links has been to combat people trying to do that, stuffing everything with links, yeah. So evidently in this leaked documentation it's obvious that links are still pretty important.

Meredith: 13:05

Well, yeah, we knew that too. Of course they are. Yes, we knew that too. A leaked link.

Meredith's husband: 13:11

So these are some of the things hitting headlines. More will be coming and after the 27th I will be very excited to tell you so much. But yeah, so far nothing. Earth shattering.

Meredith: 13:23

No, except this guy is going to get a momentary. There are 15 minutes of notoriety.

Meredith's husband: 13:29

He's going to get a lot of attention. He's also probably going to get sued.

Meredith: 13:33

I was just going to say I wonder.

Meredith's husband: 13:36

I would think you know, I don't know, I saw this. I don't know how I came across this video. It was linked in one of these articles. I wouldn't be surprised if the video were a fake, if this guy did not leak it, if he was claiming, if you really did this, why would you go make it public and point yourself out? Because I would think that you can have 100,000 lawyers on your case the next minute.

Meredith's husband: 13:59

Yeah, yeah, my brain just doesn't even visit that planet. But if I went out and made a video and put it on social media and said I leaked all the information and that video went viral and I did not leak all that information, I still got all that attention.

Meredith: 14:14

Yeah, but you're also known as a liar.

Meredith's husband: 14:18

Still get a lot of attention.

Meredith: 14:21

Yeah, I guess. So yes, yes, correct.

Meredith's husband: 14:24

Okay. So my point is there's a decent chance you're going to be seeing a lot of headlines about Google lies about this, and then Google's awful. Chance you're going to be seeing a lot of headlines about Google lies about this, and then Google's awful. Just before you rush to any judgment, let's give it a little time. Yes, even the most technically proficient people I know in the SEO industry are taking like this guy. I'm looking at an article here that actually works with Rand Fishkin and it says he has only had.

Meredith's husband: 14:51

when he wrote this article, he had only had a dozen hours to really dive in in deep concentration mode on this. Okay, which amounts to basically nothing is what he's saying. So he's going to probably spend 100 more hours trying to figure this stuff out. So we need to wait a little while.

Meredith: 15:08

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 15:09

It's not like the secret is going to be like one sentence and I can just spread it around Very interesting All right, that's all I got.

Meredith: 15:17

Okay.

Meredith's husband: 15:20

Oh, you know what else. I want to make a small announcement. I don't want to put this announcement into the closing of the podcast or the intro of the podcast, because I don't know how it's going to work. So if you scroll down and look at the show notes, there is a link in the show notes. Now you can send a text message to us. Wow, so I host this and it's not my phone. It won't link go to my phone number.

Meredith: 15:42

Stay away, people. He's mine, hence the podcast name.

Meredith's husband: 15:48

I use Buzzsprout to host the podcast. And this is a feature that Buzzsprout has just announced. You can have a link here and if you send a text message it will go to Buzzsprout and then I'll just get it as an email. So I'm not getting your phone number. I don't even know if I can reply yet. I literally just put this thing on here and I'm just curious how it goes. So if you want to try it out, please, how it?

Meredith's husband: 16:12

goes. So if you want to try it out, if you want to request a topic, if you want to make a complaint. You can write it down on a $50 bill and mail it to us. Thank you, Brandon.