Google's 14,000 Search Ranking Features Leaked

October 20, 2024

Rand Fishkin along with Mike King may have published one of the biggest data leaks outside of the Department of Justice reveal around Google Search and its internal ranking features and signals. The document was from an anonymous source (no longer anonymous, see below) but verified by Rand Fishkin and contains a ton of details on how Google Search reportedly works. More importantly, it seems to contradict a number of the Google statements made over the past two decades from numerous Google Search employees, as I covered here over the past. This reminds me a bit like the Yandex search ranking leak. Update: I briefly went through those two stories and dug a bit into the actual API documentation and honestly, based on everything I've followed over the past 20+ years around Google Search - these really look legit.