The Algorithm…you’ve been lied to. Straight up gaslighted. But we always knew that anyway, right?

And it makes sense. They don’t want us SEOs to *manipulate* search results. So they mislead us. Say DA isn’t real. Try to throw us off their trail. But alas, now we have an ENTIRE LEAKED API, and it is thick to read.

Who I Am and Why I Made This

I’m Elizabeth Nelson, CEO and Founder of Snowmad Digital. I jumped on this leak because 1) I’m here for the tea, and 2) reading every page confirmed that even though G00gle’s doesn’t like SEOs and wishes we didn’t exist, a lot of our SEO science is ON POINT.

If You Haven’t Heard It Already, Keep Reading. You Been Lied To.

Yup, you read that right. The search engine has been feeding us half-truths or straight-up lies, and this leak finally lifts the veil. Here are some key revelations:

1. Nearest Seed has Modified PageRank

Ever heard of PageRank_NS? It’s a spinoff of the classic PageRank, tailored for document understanding. Think of it as a laser-focused version of PageRank for clusters and low-quality pages. Useful, right? 100%.

2. Seven Types of PageRank

Yes, seven. We all know about ToolBarPageRank, but there’s a whole family of PageRanks out there. Each one has a specific role in how G00gle views and ranks pages.

3. Business Model Identification

G00gle has a knack for identifying business models: News Websites, YMYL (Your Money Your Life), Personal Blogs, E-Commerce, and Video Sites. What’s with the Personal Blog spotlight? Your guess is as good as mine.

4. The Big Three: NavBoost, NSR, and ChardScores

These components are crucial in the algorithm and *surprise*, they’re not what they’ve been telling us.

5. Sitewide Authority Metrics

Turns out, they uses sitewide authority signals, including traffic from Chrome browsers. So, all those Chrome users visiting your site? They’re boosting your authority.

Digging Deeper: Scoring Functions

Page Embeddings, Site Embeddings, Site Focus, and Site Radius

These terms might sound like tech jargon, but they’re pivotal in how they score your site. Essentially, they measures everything—from bad clicks to good clicks, and everything in between.

Most Intriguing Discoveries

One term that caught my eye is pageQuality (PQ). They use an LLM (Large Language Model) to estimate the “effort” put into articles. This means they’re looking at how hard your content is to replicate. Spoiler alert: Tools, Images, Videos, Unique Information, and Depth of Information score high here.

Topic Borders and Topic Authority Are Real

G00gle uses SiteFocusScore, SiteRadius, SiteEmbeddings, and PageEmbeddings for ranking. In plain English, G00gle creates a topical identity for your website and measures every page against it. Stay focused on your main topics, folks!

Image Quality Click Signals

Ever wondered how G00gle measures image quality? They use signals like usefulness, presentation, and appealingness. No idea if “appealingness” is a real word, but it’s fascinating!

Host NSR

Host NSR ranks chunks of your website. Imagine G00gle giving your site a pop quiz, measuring random sections to determine overall quality. Pretty wild, right?

My Thoughts On Everything

Invest in a well-designed site with intuitive architecture to optimize for NavBoost. Block pages that aren’t topically relevant and contextually bridge related topics to reinforce connections. Optimize your headings and paragraphs to clearly answer queries, and keep your content updated to avoid falling in G00gle low priority zone.

Clicks and Impressions matter. Write content that earns them, and keep your site consistent in quality and frequency of updates. High-quality content might be tough to maintain, but it pays off with better site-level scores and impressions.

Entities are crucial. G00gle looks at salience scores and top entity identification. And finally, remove poorly performing pages. If they’re not pulling their weight, it’s time to cut them loose.

Did We Confirm Seed Sites or Sitewide Authority?

There’s a bit called IsElectionAuthority—possibly a special signal for authoritative sites. Could this be the “seed sites” everyone talks about? It’s likely.

Sitewide “Authority”. Domain Authority? I’ll leave you to be the judge. Science & metrics are everything for me.

& Shout out to RAND, who took an L for so long. You ARE an innovator.

So there you have it. The algorithm leak has given us a peek behind the curtain, and it’s kinda reaffirming and nice to hear for us tech SEOs.

Sources:

ENTIRE API Reference (Google Drive)

https://gamma.app/docs/The-Google-Algorithm-Leak-Lifts-the-Veil-for-SEOs-v9nmk3cu3573mac?mode=doc

https://searchengineland.com/unpacking-googles-massive-search-documentation-leak-442716