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- How Google Lies and Spies - Google API Leak | MKTRSU #006
How Google Lies and Spies - Google API Leak | MKTRSU #006
From the AI Overviews fiasco to the shocking Google API Leak, it’s clear that Google has been less than honest about its practices. Both SEO and Privacy.
Google launched AI Overviews just so they can roll them back 2 weeks later after massive uproar from the SEO community. But would they do it if there wasn’t the Google API Leak showing how Google lied about SEO ranking factors and what it actually means for our privacy as internet consumers? And what the hell is Google Zero and why we should consider this being the future or organic traffic? Let’s talk about that!
My name’s Mark Valasik and this is the #006 edition of Marketing Right Side Up (or MKTRSU) newsletter (and also Youtube channel, and TikTok and Instagram).
I do weekly marketing topic summaries and social media news.
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And of course, your weekly dose of beautifully sorted Social Media News here are the Social Media One Liners for the 1st week of June.
Google Algorithm Leak - How Google Lies and Spies
May 2024 was an insane month for Google, and not in a good way.
From the AI Overviews fiasco to the shocking Google Algorithm Leak, it’s clear that Google has been less than honest about its practices. And more than the algorithm we should be very concerned about our privacy and the future of organic traffic.
The AI Overviews Debacle
The trouble began just before this year’s Google I/O conference, where Google announced the launch of AI Overviews. This was a major overhaul of the search engine results page, where the first half of the page would now be an AI-generated summary of the answer to your query. Following this would be ads, YouTube videos, and finally, the organic SEO-ranked pages.
This change enraged the SEO community, as it threatened to disrupt the industry. While we knew this was coming under the name “Search Generative Experience,” the actual implementation was a disaster. The AI-generated answers were often incorrect, dumb, or even harmful. Many of these answers were pulled from Reddit, thanks to a $60 million deal between Google and Reddit.
Google's Hypocrisy and Rollback
In March, Google’s search core update penalized AI and unhelpful content, causing significant drops in traffic for many websites. This seemed like a move to improve the search experience by promoting quality content. However, the AI Overviews rollout contradicted this by flooding the top of the search results with their own AI-generated bullshit.
The hypocrisy was glaring. Google’s CEO even claimed the AI Overviews issues were mostly due to user error. The backlash was swift, and Google eventually rolled back the AI Overviews. Small win for us, but the story doesn’t end here.
The Google API Leak
While the AI Overviews debacle was unfolding, a massive leak surfaced about how Google ranks pages. The leaked documents revealed that Google had been lying about its SEO practices big time. The leak didn’t include user data but exposed the search engine algorithm and ranking factors. 14,000 ranking factors to be exact!
For years, SEO experts suspected hidden metrics like domain authority and user engagement influenced rankings. Google denied these claims, but the leak confirmed them. Over 2,000 pages of leaked information, summarized into 256 pages, showed that Google had been misleading us all along. Clicks, co-clicks, LENGTH of your clicks, double click intervals, tendency of misclicks, these are ALL ranking factors. But not only that. They are mainly user tracking factors.
Privacy Violations
Perhaps the most concerning revelation was about privacy. The leak showed that Google Chrome is essentially the biggest spyware on your PC - for now, as Microsoft announced their AI Recall screenshotting feature embedded into the Windows 11 and many security experts sounded the alarms. But back to Google - Chrome was developed to gather more trackable data on users, beyond what other browsers could collect, to create “a better search experience”.
What this does though is that Google Chrome’s fingerprint is the most extensive of all browsers. What is a browser fingerprint you ask? Imagine your browser having a specific ID, that Google sees and tracks all activity for.
Now turn on incognito mode, turn on VPN, turn on proxy channels for IP address masking aaaand Google still tracks you. How? Well, it tracks factors like OS version, browser version, languages installed, fonts installed, resolution, and even installed extensions. Incognito mode? It’s only incognito for other users on the same device – Google sees everything.
As mentioned above, couple all of this with how your Chrome clicks/double clicks/click lengths can be tracked for up to 13 months to "improve" your search experience and the fact that even turning off cookies or JavaScript ACTS as tracking factors. Big Brother much?
The Future of SEO
Let’s put one glaring catastrophe to rest a bit and move onto another one - Google Zero.
The concept of “Google Zero” is a near future where everything you need can be done directly on the search engine result page. Shopping, watching videos, reading summaries – all within Google’s ecosystem, reducing the need for external sites other than source for the AI training.
This shift spells trouble for organic traffic. Why? Because for years we’ve built content strategies on a multi-year level, hoping for the content to stay ever-green and bring in compounded traffic volumes, so our Google positions grow and we can attract new leads without ever-present need to spend on ads. As a consultant, I used to advise clients to invest in content marketing and SEO for free traffic. Now, it seems that strategy may no longer be viable.
If, or more correctly, WHEN Google Zero hits, the organic traffic millions of websites relied on will stop almost immediately.
AI Overviews are one of the hints towards this. Google doesn’t want to do community service and drive you free traffic. It wants to move to the next level of monopoly - keeping search users and workspace users to themselves. Not directing them elsewhere, not letting them use other tools. Google and it’s wide package of services will be your Internet. That’s it. No need for other website clicks. The Google AI will read them for you and spew out the answer you look for, serve you the Youtube video you wanted, pay with your Google Pay card for any of the Google API-connected eshops for goods you wanted to shop for.
Conclusion
We’re heading towards a future dominated by centralized platforms, where not the tailored content, but rather the “tailored experience” keeps us engaged. While some hope for a decentralized future and schill Crypto and Web3, tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple or OpenAI appear to be pushing for even more control.
And to keep some control for yourself, you need to start grasping the idea of “owned media” and “owned data”. Like email lists.
Stay safe online and be mindful of your digital footprint. Check out the links below for more on operational security and protecting your privacy.
And for more AI/privacy insights, watch my previous video on why Meta's AI is dangerous for your privacy and why you should opt out immediately.
Mark.
Sources and links:
Google Algorithm Leak sources:
Google Updates Articles:
Clickup organic traffic tweet:
Google CEO interview with Nilay Patel:
Google Zero article:
Apple iOS 18 AI rumors:
Windows AI Recall spyware:
Test of browser privacy:
Test your digital fingerprint:
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