✅ Download The Link Leak Checklist, which gives you all 41 actionable optimization tips from the algorithm leak.
The Google algorithm leak shows us how links can be measured, scored, and deployed to rank your website.
I’ve spent the last few weeks looking at all things link building from the leaked Google APIs.
This is what I’ve learned:
In total:
There are over 41 actionable insights below on how Google evaluates your website’s internal and external links for you below.
Let’s dive in! (or download the PDF checklist)
What Will I Learn?
We all know that anchor text is extremely important in link quality.
But we didn’t know the extent to which Google understands and evaluates anchor text.
Bottom line: It’s impressive.
This first section explains how Google evaluates anchor text and what you can do to increase the effectiveness of your link building with anchor text.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
When it comes to anchor text, context is crucial.
Here’s why:
Google doesn’t just look at the words you use in your anchor text. They also look at the words surrounding the link and anchor.
Google examines the anchor text’s full context to understand it better. That means the effectiveness of your anchor text is heavily influenced by the words surrounding it.
High-quality anchors come from highly relevant content. And that makes sense.
The words and phrases around your links affect the overall effectiveness and impact of the link on your site.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchor
- context2: Terms near the anchor text
- fullLeftContext: Full context to the left of the anchor text
- fullRightContext: Full context to the right of the anchor text
The “context2″ metric identifies terms near the anchor text, while “fullLeftContext” and “fullRightContext” provide the complete context on either side of the anchor.
This helps Google assess whether the anchor text is naturally integrated into relevant content.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchor
- sourceType – Records the quality of the anchor’s source page
On top of that, “sourceType” records the quality of the anchor’s source page, ensuring links come from reputable pages.
See here:
This means they’re specifically looking at your anchors on these levels:
So how can we use this information?
For example, instead of using “best men’s running shoes,” try variations like “top men’s running shoes” or “men’s running shoes comparisons.”
For internal anchor text links:
Next, you want to mix it up…
What about external link anchor text?
Use similar anchor text types that align with what is currently ranking in the SERPs. Watch this video to learn more.
The content around your anchor text is just as important as the anchor itself (This applies to both internal and external links).
Make sure that the words, phrases, and sentences surrounding your anchors are highly relevant.
Google uses the words directly before and after the anchor text to understand the anchor itself.
It’s clear to see the difference right?
Optimising the text around your anchor text can significantly boost the quality and effectiveness of your links.
Don’t just look at DA/DR metrics – Build guest posts, niche edits and PR links from high traffic, authoritative sites that rank for hyper relevant keywords.
These types of links are powerful because they come from trustworthy sources that specifically rank in your NLP category, and can send clicks (user signals).
It also explains why high-quality guest posting services and things like niche edits and parasite SEO work so well.
Start by:
Then, once you’ve built a list.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Google cross-references anchor text from external and internal links to assess the relevance of your pages and website to specific topics.
Most people count internal and external links differently – but Google seems to take a different approach.
This means internal and external anchor texts are categorized, counted, and scored together.
Here’s how it works…
Google scores anchor text based on a few key factors:
These elements apply to both internal and external anchors.
Diversified anchor text is the key here.
You need to strike a balance between the types of anchor text you use in internal and external links.
API Reference Module: RepositoryWebrefSimplifiedAnchor
- SimplifiedAnchor – Distinguishes between internal link and external link anchor text
Using “SimplifiedAnchor,” Google separates on-site anchors (links within your site) from off-site anchors (links from other sites).
Each has its own count and score, which are put together at the end.
Interestingly, partial or fragmented anchor text is also counted the same as an exact match. It contributes to the overall score, so every relevant anchor counts.
API reference Module: CompressedQualitySignals
- anchorMismatchDemotion – anchor_mismatch_demotion: converted from QualityBoost.mismatched.boost.
Google’s “QualityBoost” element is designed to ensure that the anchor matches the topic of the page.
Google can demote websites with mismatched anchors, even going as far as penalising them.
“anchorMismatchDemotion” seems to represent the penalty given to anchor text that doesn’t match the target page’s topic.
This penalty or demotion is generated from the boost value assigned to mismatched anchor texts in the “QualityBoost” metric.
Google evaluates both internal and external anchor texts in its scoring system.
You don’t want too many exact or partial match anchor text counts.
That means you must diversify the type of anchors you use while ensuring they are still highly relevant.
Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush & Screaming Frog can help.
Use internal anchor text strategically to balance out anchors used in external links and avoid over-optimisation.
Remember that Google is looking at both internal and external anchors and comparing them.
But you control your internal links.
This means…
Be careful: Don’t forget to diversify internal anchors while also maintaining relevance to the page.
Ratios are differernt for every keyword search… Compare your anchor text strategy to your competitors to avoid demotions.
Break up your external link anchor text into different categories:
Do the same for each of your competitors targeting the same keyword. Compare the results.
Do your anchor text percentages match your competitors’?
Remember that Google can assess exact match and partial match anchors in the same way. So, categorise them correctly.
Check out this anchor text strategy video to learn more.
Before Google algorithm core updates, check your internal and external anchor ratios on your key pages.
Once you have refined your internal anchor text and know how you stack up to competitors, you can refocus your strategy.
You can watch this video to learn more about that.
Double-check that each of your internal anchor text is highly relevant to your target page. This will help you avoid anchor text demotions.
This is REALLY important…
It’s one of the first things we do for quick ranking wins in my full-service SEO agency… because everyone sleeps on it.
Remember:
Never link multiple pages with the same anchor text. This will only confuse Google and potentially negatively affect those pages.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Google summarises anchor texts from trusted websites to gauge their credibility.
This summary ultimately helps Google assess a site’s trustworthiness and reliability based on the anchor text.
API Reference Module: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorTrustedInfo
- matchedScore – Difference in KL-divergence from spam and non-spam anchors
- phrasesScore – Count of anchors classified as spam using anchor text
Google uses metrics like “matchedScore” and “phrasesScore” as gatekeepers to ensure links are natural and relevant to the page they point to. This alone highlights the importance of anchor text in backlink quality.
But there’s more…
Google combats link spam by scrutinising links from trusted sites.
Validating links from trusted sites is incredibly important to Google, especially in high-risk industries where information accuracy is essential (e.g. YMYL niches).
This all leads to “trustedScore“.
API Reference Module: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorTrustedInfo
- trustedScore – Fraction of pages with newsy anchors on the site, >0 for trusted sites.
Google assigns a trustedScore to a website and ultimately uses it to boost (or demote) the value of links from specific sites. A link’s effect on your site is significantly influenced by its trustedScore.
Important: Websites that link to news-related content more often get a higher TrustedScore. That means links from these types of websites are also more valuable.
On the other hand, sites that link more to commercial pages usually have lower trustedScores.
One link from a trusted, high authority site will unlock the power of the rest of the medium to low quality links pointing to that page.
Particularly in high-risk niches, links lose value if their source is uncertain.
Uncertain simply means the website that links to you isn’t established as a reliable and trustworthy source. Google ONLY validates links from untrusted sites if it is supported by at least one link from a trusted source.
What’s the HUGE takeaway here?
You might have powerful links that are nullified because you have ZERO trusted links.
If you are in a high-risk niche with a bunch of average guest posts, you should experiment with building 1 high-authority link to each money page with one of these trusted link building services.
Why?
Because just 1 link from a highly trusted website using relevant anchors can open the authority flow for all the other links you’ve built to that page.
Increase your EEAT by sending outbound links to high TrustedScore sites.
How?
Link to websites with a high TrustedScore, such as news sites, authority sites, and edu/gov sites. Use newsy anchor types such as “according to, “”data from,” “read here,” “website,” and “click here.”
Websites using these types of anchor text are likely to get a higher trustedScore overall.
It proves your content has been well-researched.
Just how Google Penguin detects inbound anchor patterns, they are potentially finding and devaluing link farms through outbound link profile patterns.
Before securing a backlink from a new website, use a tool like Screaming Frog to analyse the prospect website’s outbound anchor text.
Look for sites with high ‘trustedScores’ that frequently use “newsy” anchor texts instead of more commercial anchor texts. These sites will regularly link to industry or mainstream news websites as sources.
All of this indicates the kind of credibility you’re looking for.
This might come as a bit of a surprise…
But internal links and external links can have the same impact on rankings because Google evaluates them the same way.
Crazy, right?
This section is where we break into some really juicy findings. I’ll give you a full breakdown of how Google evaluates links and what you need to do to maximise the impact of both internal and external links.
Let’s jump in!
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
The Google Search Leak contained quite a bit of information about how internal and external links help rank websites.
Internal links seem to have a similar amount of weight as external links.
This highlights the need for a strong internal link building strategy. It can make a massive difference to your overall rankings.
Google also tracks the relevance of anchor text on both types of links. They even keep a historical database to identify deleted links and links from expired domains.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchor
- isLocal – indicates whether an anchor’s source and target pages are on the same domain
Google uses the “isLocal” metric to determine if links are internal or external. This emphasizes the importance of creating a robust internal linking structure to connect related content and improve site structure.
Backlinks with anchor text from the same keyword group are particularly valuable because they indicate a strong thematic relevance between the linked pages.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchor
- expired – True if exp domain
- deletionDate – Records when a link was deleted
Google also closely monitors links from expired domains and deleted websites with the “expired” status and “deletionDate” metric.
A link from a deleted website can be considered a negative signal because it’s not trustworthy or reliable.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchor
- locality – For ranking purposes, the quality of an anchor is measured by its “locality” and “bucket”
- parallelLinks – The number of additional links from the same source page to the same target domain
The “locality” attribute assesses the link’s anchor text quality based on its relevance to a topic (keyword bucket). The more relevant, the more valuable.
Google’s parallelLinks metric seems to show that too many links from the same website are less effective.
When building backlinks, it’s better to get a single link from multiple domains than multiple links from the same domain. Diversity is a good signal to Google.
Google treats them similarly to external links. But the best part is you have complete control over your internal linking strategy.
I’ve been saying this for years, but I think the leak really hammers it home…
Internal links are really important.
Leverage internal linking to get fast and cost-effective results for you or your client’s websites. Small changes in internal links can have a significant effect on your website.
TIP: You can search for site:yourdomain.com AND your pages ‘target keyword’
The result?
Google will tell you what pages are most relevant to add internal links:
Follow this process:
Cool, right?
Focus on building links within the same keyword or topic bucket for maximum relevance.
For example, “weight loss tips,” “how to lose weight fast,” and “best diets for weight loss” could all be considered keywords in the same bucket.
Use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to find websites that are already ranking for your target keywords. Look at the backlinks of those ranking URLs to find top-tier link building opportunities.
The reason those pages rank well in the first place is because of their backlink profile!
Now, you just need to pitch guest posts or secure link inserts from them.
The leak shows that Google flags links from expired domains, be careful who you get links from.
Google has been cracking down on expired domain use.
This is probably to penalise sites that convert them into PBNs or low-quality guest post sites.
Which as a website owner, you probably get emailed lists of every day to buy for cheap
DON’T… They can land you in hot water.
Before building a link, do a quick check:
This will help you steer clear of any expired domain issues as they arise.
If you need help with this process, follow our domain ownership history tutorial.
Keep a record of your most valuable links pointing to your most valuable pages, fix or replace with like for like anchors as they drop off.
Deleted links maintain their value for a short period after being removed.
That means you have time to act before the deleted link equity stops impacting your site.
Keep a record of all your most valuable links in a spreadsheet.
List them and include key information like:
Audit these links regularly to ensure they don’t return 404 errors or 500 errors. If you lose a link, contact the website to get it back or suggest a replacement.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Many SEOs and business owners don’t bother building links from non-ranking pages (pages without traffic).
These likely include sites like directories, business profiles, press releases, category pages, RSS feeds, and historical records.
Why?
There is a misconception that these links aren’t effective. But the leak showed that even pages that don’t rank well can still boost your site.
API Reference Module: IndexingDupsLocalizedLocalizedCluster
- boostSourceBlocker – Defined as a source-blocker, a result which can be a boost target but should itself not be boosted (e.g. roboted documents)
The “BoostSourceBlocker” attribute refers to certain pages that can help boost your rankings but shouldn’t be boosted themselves.
If we consider the role of certain links, they make up the ecosystem of a real business.
Plus, they can send other branded signals for EEAT.
Don’t ONLY chase high-ranking pages for backlinks.
A good link profile has a mix of different types of links, including those from non-ranking sources. Add non-ranking sources as part of your overall link building strategy to maximise diversity in your backlink profile.
Here is some inspiration on where to get them:
Remember:
These sorts of links DO NOT move the needle in terms of ranking.
However, a solid natural link profile includes a variety of links . As long as the link is relevant to your site and not spammy, it can benefit your search rankings in other ways, such as EEAT.
They can be produced extremely easily when setting up a new site, especially when using a business profile or local listing service.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Content and link relevance play an essential role in the effect the backlink has on your site.
You want both the content and the link to be highly relevant to the linked page. This applies to both internal and external links.
API Reference Module: “RepositoryWebrefEntityLinkSource”
- score: A score that measures how likely an anchor text matches the main content to avoid misalignment.
Google essentially assigns a “score” to each link, ranging from 0 to infinity. This tells the algorithm how likely it is for one entity (link) to appear together with another entity (content) in the same context.
Put simply: The higher the score, the more relevant the content and link are to each other.
That’s what you want!
The other aspect you need to keep in mind here is anchor text relevance. Google uses anchor text to establish how relevant the link is to the linked entity.
Your anchor text must be highly related to both the page it comes from and the page it points to.
To maximise the impact of your links, focus on obtaining links from relevant pages AND have anchor text closely aligned with your website. The content surrounding the link should also be highly relevant.
Here’s how you do it:
Imagine you have a page dedicated to “Healthy Smoothie Recipes”.
You receive a link insertion opportunity from a page titled “Top 10 Nutritious Smoothie Creations,” with content talking about a range of healthy smoothie recipes.
According to the Keyword Buckets and Anchor Score This kind of link is extremely valuable.
But you need to leverage the anchor text and surrounding text to make it appear more natural (and more effective). Don’t just shove your target keyword in the anchor text position.
For example, the anchor text could be your brand, and the surrounding text could lead to your health recipe content.
This type of anchor text would be ideal for linking to your “Healthy Smoothie Recipes” page. The surrounding text is entity-rich and gives Google all the context it needs.
That ultimately means your entity link source “score” would be very high.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Google’s use of site chunks can dramatically influence how your content ranks.
What’s interesting is that you can leverage topical maps and silo structures to optimise your ‘site chunk’ internal linking strategy. This is done by directing link equity to the most important sections (chunks) of your site.
API Reference Module: QualityNsrNsrData
- siteLinkIn – Average value of site_link_in for pages in the site chunk.
Think of site chunks like sections of your website.
“siteLinkIn” essentially measures how well-linked and authoritative different sections of your site are. Well-linked sections typically have higher rankings overall.
The metric also helps Google determine the quality and relevance of each chunk based on its link profile.
API Reference Module: QualityNsrNsrChunksProto
- primaryChunk – Primary NSR sitechunk.
- secondaryChunks – Secondary NSR sitechunk. When present, it provides more granular chunking than primary sitechunks.
Google divides sites into two main sections:
Google is interested in secondary chunks mainly to understand primary chunks. This is important to keep in mind.
For example:
Google uses all the content in the secondary chunk to better understand the primary chunk.
API Reference Module: QualityNsrPQDataSubchunkData
- confidence: Reliability score of the chunk.
- deltaNsr: Subchunk delta in NSR.
Each chunk gets a “confidence” score that indicates the reliability of Google’s evaluation.
Higher confidence scores mean that Google could accurately evaluate the content, which probably means better rankings for pages within that chunk.
API Reference Module: QualityNsrPQDataSubchunkData
- pageWeight: Document importance within the subchunk.
The “pageWeight” metric indicates the importance of pages within a chunk.
Higher pageWeight values mean a page is more important than other pages within the same chunk.
API Reference Module: QualityNsrPQDataSubchunkData
- Type: Chunk type (e.g., ymyl_health, d2v).
The “type” attribute categorises content by type, for example “ymyl_health”. This ensures Google can properly evaluate content based on the topic.
We already know that Google scrutinises some topics more than others.
The type attribute is probably part of this process.
Focus on building quality internal links to your homepage and other key pages (primary chunks).
Your website must be easy to navigate, with every page accessible in just three clicks from the homepage. Use a silo structure to link related pages together.
TechRadar are pros at this with a structure like:
You can access the most important iPhone content in just three clicks!
Google looks at links within chunks. This is a new concept that we are just starting to understand.
But I think it plays an important role in rankings and can explain why a blog section of your site might rank but an ecommerce section doesn’t.
The big takeaway so far is that you need to balance the link profile in each silo or category of your site. This should boost overall site performance.
I recommend diving deeper into each section of your website.
Answering these questions will help you balance links across your website and ensure they give each section the best chance to rank.
Think of each section/category/silo of your site as it’s own website ‘chunk’ – how many links do they have, what are the link anchor ratios per ‘chunk’.
This comes down to your siteLinkIn value.
Build high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites to your core content pages and even your category pages (depending on your setup).
For example:
If we wanted to rank our “SEO algorithm” related posts, we can see that category is low on links, so we’d secure backlinks from top SEO blogs to enhance the credibility and authority of that chunk.
Make sure that every page on the site only has one core topic ‘Central Entity’.
Then, build internal links to each page with relevant anchor text for the core topic. This should boost your overall pageWeight scores for each chunk.
The main goal here is to be better than your competitors.
You need to have a solid internal link structure and high-quality external links. This will give you an advantage in the SERPs.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Google places a high value on where your links are located within your content.
SEOs have suspected this for a while, but the Google leak has confirmed it.
Links embedded in the main content area hold more weight than those in headers, sidebars or footers.
That means that you should aim to place links in your main content, ideally towards the top of the page.
API Reference Module: IndexingDupsLocalizedLocalizedCluster
- inbodyTargetLink
- outlinksTargetLink
- boostSourceBlocker
Google actively tracks links within the main content (inbodyTargetLink) and links outside of the main content (outlinksTargetLink).
As I mentioned, links within the main content are more valuable and have a greater impact on your rankings.
For scholarly citations, Google also tracks the size and styles of links:
API Reference Module: ScienceCitationAnchor
- face: Font face (e.g., Bold, Italic)
- size: Font size in pixels
This is an interesting point that I hadn’t considered before.
Google’s algorithms seem to evaluate scholarly article links based on their visual representation within the content.
The “face” and “size” seem to be the main things they are tracking in terms of visual appearance.
Don’t rely solely on links in headers, sidebars, footers and widget links.
This is pretty common knowledge…
But it’s worth checking the most important pages on your site to see if they have links from internal content.
Not just navigation areas… These types of links have less impact on your rankings – Screaming Frog can help!
The Inlinks report can be used to check link position vs anchor text per page.
Uou can also export all of this to audit pages in mass.
Concentrate on adding more high-value internal links to your main body content.
Follow the anchor text guidelines we shared earlier to maximise the value of each link. This applies to external backlinks as well.
This will ultimately boost the scoring and weight metrics for your pages and site chunks.
Make important links as clickable as possible to increase engagement, experiement with size, font weight, icons, etc.
Google measures font size and styling for scholarly articles.
I recommend keeping all your links the same font size as your main content. Then, occasionally highlight, bold or italicise important internal and external links.
Even experiment with adding icons:
We know that Google used Chrome data to track link clicks.
So, make important links as clickable as possible using colours or a link icon to increase engagement.
Remember: Google measures engagement metrics like clicks and dwell time.
This will help bolster your pages and boost the value of internal links.
Google has a number of different metrics and attributes for evaluating links.
Think of these metrics and attributes like points. The more “points” you have in your favour, the bigger the impact of your links.
In this section, I will explain how Google uses PageRank and Link Scoring in their algorithm. Pay close attention to the takeaways so you can get these factors working for you (not against you).
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Normalised Site Rank (NSR) is a metric used to measure your website’s prominence and engagement.
The NSR ranges from 0 to 1000 and is relative to other websites. That means Google compares your websites to other sites to calculate your NSR score.
The higher your NSR, the greater potential you have to rank.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchorSource
- NSR – This NSR value has a range [0,1000] and is the original value [0.0,1.0] multiplied by 1000 rounded to an integer.
NSR is a key metric that reflects your site’s overall authority and engagement. You want excellent website engagement so Google sees you as an authority.
But links also play an essential role in your NSR.
You can leverage NSR in your link building strategy to maximise your site’s visibility and ranking potential.
Time to stop using DA/DR as the only metrics you use to track authority for a link prospect.
It’s true that we don’t know exactly what makes a high NSR site.
But based on what we know about how Google’s algorithm works, we can make an educated guess about how to evaluate it properly.
Let me explain…
Create a list of metrics that are likely related to NSR. These should include:
You can use a tool like Similar Web to estimate all of these.
Imagine you run a blog about dog training. Your goal is to acquire valuable links from websites in your niche with a high NSR.
Use any of these proven link building strategies to create a list of target websites. Now, simply filter them based on the NSR-related metrics you put together before.
This will ensure you only build relevant, high-authority links with a good NSR – Exactly what you want!
Get featured on niche specific websites with high NSR related metrics to increase your own websites trust metrics.
Establishing and maintaining a niche-specific reputation with Google has become more and more important.
The key here is to get your site featured on NSR giants, and that link back to your site.
You can do that by:
Most of the time, you will receive backlinks from large NSR websites to an information page on your site. This is particularly true for large digital PR campaigns.
So, it’s essential to add relevant internal links to your key money pages.
This should give them a boost by passing the link equity you receive from large NSR sites to your money pages.
Be authoritative and well-connected from links within your industry.
You already know that a diverse link profile is important.
But diversification can mean multiple things.
In this case, you should aim to acquire links from:
This diversification ensures your site appears authoritative and well-connected within your industry. That’s exactly what Google wants to see!
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
The value of backlinks can be enhanced by optimising for keyword buckets and link scoring.
This works for both internal and external links. Leveraging keyword buckets and link scoring can significantly boost your site’s SEO performance.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchor
- bucket
- setiPagerankWeight
Google assigns temporary PageRank values to new pages using the “setiPagerankWeight” and categorises each link into keyword buckets.
This means: links from content within the same keyword bucket are more valuable to your rankings.
API Reference Module: RepositoryWebrefWebrefOutlinkInfo
- isNofollow: Whether this is a nofollow link
- topicalityWeight: The topicality weight for each link with this target URL
Google treats all links on a page as “do-follow” if at least one link is “do-follow.”
Links also have a “topicalityWeight,” which indicates their relevance to the target URL.
This is what you need to do:
Use Google Search to find the most relavant content segments on your own site for building internal links, to benefit from the ‘Topic Weight’ of your ‘Keyword Bucket’.
Leverage internal links from pages within the same keyword bucket to maximise relevance and impact.
What is a keyword bucket?
Short answer – A group of keywords related to a specific topic or theme.
The keywords should share a common context and be used together when writing about a specific topic.
Here’s how to take advantage of this:
Search in Google for your website and target using the following search operators:
This will ensure that all of your internal links are relevant and valuable.
Cool, right?
Use Google Search to find the most relevant external pages to get niche edits from, these have the highest ‘Topic Weight’ for your target pages ‘Keyword Bucket’.
Remember: External links work the same as internal links.
You want to get highly relevant backlinks from pages in a similar keyword bucket. These will likely have the most significant impact on your site and build your authority.
Search on Google for your target keyword while removing your website:
The search will help you find related pages to your target keyword bucket. Links from these pages are contextually relevant (high topic weight scores) and will add a lot of authority to your site.
Use quality link inserts to secure as many links as possible from these pages.
Use Google’s own Natural language processing (NLP) page to kick off your brainstorming for keyword buckets.
Head over to Google’s NLP page and find your main website topic.
For example, if you were optimising for smartphone deals, you can see that Google categorises the following topics together:
Google is literally telling you topics they group together to categorise content. This also applies to links.
Now, you simply build links from pages that cover these core topics back to the page you’re trying to rank on. These will not only add a lot of authority but also be highly relevant.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Google evaluates links based on a number of attributes.
Here’s the good news:
Understanding how these attributes affect your backlink profile will show you what types of links you should be building right now. This should form the foundation of your link building strategy going forward.
The API docs show that Google collects a huge amount of data about a link’s source to better understand its relevance and trustworthiness.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchorSource
- additionalInfo: Additional information related to the source, such as news hub info.
Google pays close attention to news websites – The “additionalInfo” attribute shows that trending sites with news links may even be treated differently.
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchorSource
- cluster: Anchor++ cluster ID
- homePageInfo: Information about whether the source page is a home page
- pageTags: Page tags used in anchors to identify properties of the linking page
As a safeguard against abuse, Google closely monitors link clusters with the “cluster” attribute. For the same reason, they also closely watch links built to website home pages (homePageInfo).
API Reference Module: AnchorsAnchorSource
- PageRank: uint16 scale
- pagerankNS: uint16 scale
- pagerankNS: Pagerank-NearestSeeds is a PageRank score for the doc, calculated using the NearestSeeds method
Interestingly, Google also uses the “pageRankNS” attribute, which values seed sites more.
Seed sites are highly trusted websites, like those with .edu, .gov, or .mil domains, used by search engines to evaluate other sites’ credibility.
You need high PageRank links from high NS, Trustscore sites… so that means getting S-tier links from digital PR.
Start by creating some solid, newsworthy content that is very relevant to your niche.
The content should be incredibly engaging and have a story-driven narrative. Journalists don’t just want to see facts and figures – They want a story they can share with their audience.
That’s what you need to give them!
Ensure you can easily add internal links within the content to other relevant (money) pages on your site. This will make it easy to pass the link equity.
Now you need to get in front of some journalists.
Use tools like Prowly or Hunter.io to find contact information for journalists who might be interested in your story. Publish the content on your site and run an email campaign to contact the journalists.
If you do a good job, you should pick up some juicy, high-authority links that Google really values.
They give you the powerful links you need to appear credible and authoritative.
Acquire links from highly trusted and authoritative .gov (government), .edu (education), or .mil (military) seed sites (*If relevant to your niche*).
We are talking primarily about websites with a .gov (government), .edu (education), or .mil (military) domain name. Google trusts these websites more, so links from them are valuable.
Use tools like SimilarWeb to filter these websites by category. You can also use Ahrefs’ top million sites to identify the most relevant websites with these types of domain names.
You will need a good angle to acquire a link from these types of sites.
Check out our complete tutorials on building gov backlinks and edu backlinks to learn more.
When buying or outreaching for links, check their link profiles for seed site links (as well as DR, relevance, organic traffic, and keyword buckets).
Here is a nice strategy you can use to get the benefit of seed site links without needing to place a link on that site.
Let me explain:
Getting links on seed sites is hard work. But getting links on pages or sites that already have backlinks from seed sites is much easier.
There are two ways to do it:
For example, here’s a site that accepts guest posts with seed site links and 250k monthly traffic:
This approach lets you associate your website with trusted and authoritative seed sites without actually building links from them.
Cool, right?
You need quality homepage links, and Google is closely looking at them so don’t just target your money pages.
There are a lot of reasons to build more links to your homepage.
But the leak revealed that having a diverse range of trusted and reputable inbound links pointing at you homepage may help you avoid link penalties. This is something you should be doing now.
The key is to build homepage links from a variety of sources:
Links from all of these places pointing at your homepage will help increase your trust and authority with Google. Think of it as hundreds of cross-references that point to the fact that you have a legitimate and trustworthy site.
Who doesn’t want that, right?
Tip: Ask journalists to link back to your homepage if they mention you in an article instead of the page with the PR story.
This simple tactic builds the authority of your domain – Not just a page.
Here’s the truth:
Google link spam penalties do happen and can significantly affect your website.
However, the Google search leak gave us a peek at how Google handles link spam today. This includes the factors that the Penguin algorithm uses to determine manipulative links.
This next section will show you how Google detects link spam.
It will also show you why algorithmic-based Penguin penalties are handed out and what you can do to avoid them.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Google Penguin is designed to detect and penalise websites that use unnatural links to manipulate Google’s ranking algorithm.
Penguin was released in 2012 and is still a large part of the algorithm today. It’s a common system that every SEO worth their salt knows about.
But the leak gave us more insight into how Penguin detects unnatural link patterns.
API Reference Module: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorStatistics
This API reference indicates how Google analyses and flags bad links, taking into account various factors such as anchor text, link source, and domain status.
Penguin Penalty And Updates
Penguin penalties are like a ticking time bomb…
They go off periodically, running in cycles. That means the Penguin system isn’t running all the time.
API Reference Module: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorStatistics
- penguinLastUpdate – BEGIN: Penguin related fields. Timestamp when penguin scores were last updated. Measured in days since Jan. 1st 1995.
Here’s the interesting part:
The Penguin algorithm typically targets websites that use repetitive anchor text or have backlinks from exactly the same domain. This is why you must ONLY build links from real, high-quality websites.
External Anchor Text Focus
The primary way Penguin detects spammy links is through external anchor text.
As you can see above:
Anchor text is mentioned more than 50 times in that single document.
High-Quality Links
API Reference Module: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorStatistics
- topPrOnsiteAnchorCount – According to anchor quality bucket, anchor with pagrank > 51000 is the best anchor. anchors with pagerank < 47000 are all same.
- topPrOffdomainAnchorCount
- topPrOndomainAnchorCount
High PageRank (PR) links from trusted sources are your best friends.
These links are more valuable and better protected, giving your backlink profile a significant boost in quality.
Expired Domain Flags
API Reference Module: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorStatistics
- pageFromExpiredTaggedAnchors – Set in SignalPenalizer::FillInAnchorStatistics.
Google has been cracking down on expired domains for a while.
We now understand how they handle expired domains much better. Links from expired domains are like red flags to Google.
These links are scrutinised much more and monitored regularly. This often reduces their effectiveness and value.
Redundant And Excessive Links
API Reference Module: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorStatistics
- anchorPhraseCount – The number of unique anchor phrases. Capped by the constant (=5000)
- totalDomainsAbovePhraseCap – Number of domains above per domain phrase cap. We see too many phrases in the domains.
- totalDomainPhrasePairsSeenApprox – Number of domain/phrase pairs in total — i.e. how many anchors we would have if the domain/phrase cutoff was set to 1 instead of 200. This is “approx” for large anchor clusters because there can be double counting when the LRU cache forgets about rare domain/phrase pairs.
- redundantAnchorForPhraseCapCount – Total anchor dropped due to exceed per domain phrase cap. Equals to sum of anchors_dropped in the repeated group RedundantAnchorInfoForPhraseCap, but can go higher if the latter reaches the cap, currently 1000.
- anchorsWithDedupedImprovanchors – The number of anchors for which some ImprovAnchors phrases have been removed due to duplication within source org.
- totalDomainPhrasePairsAboveLimit – The following should be equal to the size of the following repeated group, except that it can go higher than 10,000.
Bottom line: Google doesn’t like seeing too many similar links and anchors pointing to your site – This includes the same (or similar) anchor text.
Excessive use of anchor text and too many links from similar websites can attract penalties. This is where you need to diversify your link profile from a range of sources, not just one type of link.
Regularly audit your backlink profile to look for unusual spikes in link activity.
It’s always better to be proactive than reactive when it comes to Google.
Here’s how you protect yourself when it comes to link penalties.
If you notice:
It’s worth noting that sudden spikes in dodgy links could be a sign of a negative link attack. That’s why you should constantly monitor your backlink profile.
Use reliable SEO tools to track new backlinks, such as:
Keep in mind that these tools aren’t always accurate, so use them as a rough guide.
If you don’t feel confident, it’s worth hiring a professional SEO agency to do the audit for you.
Keep your backlink profile clean by using Google’s Disavow tool to remove toxic links.
This is especially important in a negative SEO attack.
Use a tool like Semrush to create a disavow file quickly, or create your own and manually submit it to Google.
This will protect your website and its integrity in Google’s eyes.
Continuously build high-quality backlinks from reputable sources and mix up your anchor text to avoid any penalty issues.
I have said it once, and I’ll say it again…
A strong, diverse link profile is key.
Don’t use just one link building tactic. Use a range of tactics to maximise your link diversity.
Key API Leak Learnings:
Resources:
What I found in the API (Nerdy Bit)
Google has long claimed that their algorithms are advanced enough to detect and ignore spammy links.
That’s why they’re considering removing the disavow tool!
But until the leak, it was largely unknown how their algorithm handles things like spammy links (you didn’t build) or negative SEO attacks.
The truth is that it’s a pretty sophisticated system.
They have an entire process and key mechanisms in place to protect websites against negative SEO attacks . While it will never be 100% accurate, I will sleep easier knowing they do a lot of the heavy lifting for me.
Google uses all of these metrics to detect and manage negative SEO attacks.
They protect websites from SEO attacks with a “spam shield”. This essentially works by temporarily demoting a page during an attack and removing the bad links after the attack.
Cool, right?
API Reference: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorSpamInfo
- demotedEnd: End date of the demotion period.
- demotedStart: Start date of the demotion period.
The “demotedStart” and “demotedEnd” dates define the period during which a page is temporarily demoted. This demotion period helps mitigate the impact of sudden link spikes by reducing a page’s visibility.
It’s also designed to make the attackers think their negative SEO attack is working.
However, the page will recover after the attack stops.
Smart Google!
Good anchor text links before a negative SEO attack are preserved. Think of it like a temporary disable period Google places on your page.
This ensures that your page benefits from all the positive SEO signals it has when the attack is finished.
API Reference: IndexingDocjoinerAnchorSpamInfo
- phraseCount: Number of spam phrases found in anchors among unique domains.
- phraseDays: Days over which 80% of these phrases were discovered.
- phraseFraq: Fraction of spam phrases among all anchors of the document.
- phraseRate: Average daily rate of spam anchor discovery.
The phraseCount, phraseDays, phraseFraq and phraseRate metrics monitor spam phrases in anchor texts.
These metrics help Google identify and classify spammy links based on-
This is pretty comprehensive. And it backs up Google’s claims that they automatically fight spammy links and negative SEO attacks for you.
But as you know…
I am not one to rely on the Google “hope” strategy . I much prefer to take matters into my own hands and ensure my website is protected.
Monitor your backlink profile regularly for unusual spikes in activity. Pay extra close attention to links that you didn’t build.
Sudden spikes are the key indicator of a negative SEO attack.
The attackers essentially buy hundreds (sometimes thousands) of spammy, low-quality links and send them towards your site.
To identify these spikes, use tools like:
Remember:
These tools aren’t perfect, so use them only as a rough guide. You should ultimately be able to make a call on links yourself.
If you are struggling, hire a professional SEO agency to run a backlink audit and manage your backlinks for you.
This might sound tedious…
But it’s worth it!
New links can disappear from backlink reports quickly. It’s essential that you maintain your own personal record of every link on your site.
Consolidate links into one spreadsheet from tools like:
This will give one comprehensive record of every link your site has.
Then, use Google’s Disavow Tool to flag and remove any harmful or suspicious links to your site.
Focus on a well-round backlink profile with varied anchor text, it reduces the risk of being affected by negative SEO tactics significantly.
Why?
Short answer – It makes you look trustworthy and builds your reputation with Google
Sounds obvious, right?
But Google essentially compares your prior link acquisition history to what’s happening now. They detect any anomalies in your link acquisition.
This can benefit you when you’re under attack.
Google will see that you haven’t intentionally built spammy links in the past, which means you are less likely to be flagged as the one building these negative SEO links.
Understand some negative SEO demotions are temporary, don’t disavow valuable links in a panic, wait and monitor movement to see if it’s temporary.
Your site (or specific pages) may be temporarily penalised if you do get attacked.
Remember that Google is actually protecting your website.
During this time, you need to continue to focus on positive SEO strategies:
This will act as a counter-weight to the attack and support your site’s recovery when the attack finishes.
This post is jam-packed with information.
To save you time and make it easier to implement, we’ve bundled up all the actionable takeaways into a downloadable PDF checklist.
There are 41 actionable lessons in total so make sure you download it now for quick reference.
The sheer amount of information about link building from the leak is hard to ignore!
And if you want to learn more from the leak, check out these two posts next:
What do you think about the algorithm leak so far? Have you discovered anything cool? Let me know in the comments below!
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This is an incredibly insightful post! The lessons from the Google algorithm leak are invaluable for anyone looking to enhance their link-building strategy. I love how you’ve broken down each lesson; it makes it so much easier to digest and apply. Thanks for sharing these practical tips!
You’re welcome!
Fascinating insights! The Google algorithm leak provides such valuable lessons for link building. Your breakdown of these lessons makes it easier to understand and apply them. Thanks for sharing this timely and informative post!”
Glad it was helpful
This is an eye-opening post! The insights from the Google algorithm leak are invaluable for anyone involved in SEO and link building. I appreciate the detailed lessons you’ve outlined—it’s a great way to stay ahead of the curve and refine our strategies. Thanks for sharing these important takeaways!
Fascinating insights from the Google algorithm leak! The link building lessons you’ve outlined are incredibly valuable for anyone looking to improve their SEO strategy. Thanks for breaking down these lessons and providing actionable tips for enhancing link building efforts!
Happy to help!
Fascinating insights from the Google algorithm leak! Your breakdown of the 13 link-building lessons is both informative and actionable. Understanding these changes can significantly enhance link-building strategies and improve SEO efforts. Thanks for sharing these valuable lessons—this is a must-read for anyone looking to stay ahead in the SEO game!