Google has confirmed that the leaked documents about the operation of the Search Engine are real

For some time after the disclosure, Google initially declined to comment on the authenticity of the 2,500 leaked internal documents detailing the data the company collects. Now he has confirmed their authenticity.

The documents detail the data that Google records and uses to rank web pages in its search engine. This is something unimaginable and a real treasure trove of data for SEO professionals and website owners. We finally got an insight into the operation of one of the most important systems in the world.

"We caution that users should not make inaccurate assumptions about the search engine based on information that is out of context, out of date, or incomplete," said Google spokesman Davis Thompson. "We have shared extensive information about how our search engine works and the factors our systems consider, while working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation."

The existence of the leaked material was first warned by search engine optimization (SEO) experts Rand Fishkin and Mike King, who published the first analyzes of the documents and their contents.

The leaked material shows that Google collects and potentially uses data that, according to company representatives, does not contribute to the ranking of websites in the Google search engine, such as clicks, data about Chrome browser users and others.

The thousands of pages of documents act as a repository of information for Googlers, but it's not clear what parts of the detailed data are actually used to rank content on the search engine — the data may be out of date, used solely for training purposes, or collected but not specifically used to search. The docs also don't reveal how, if at all, the different elements affect search.

Nevertheless, the information made public is likely to cause chaos, confusion and excitement in the fields of search engine optimization (SEO), marketing and publishing. Google is usually very secretive about how its search algorithm works, but these very documents provided information about what factors are at the forefront of Google's website ranking algorithm.

We recommend that you read the full analysis of the documents published by Mike King.