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# Ep 159: Rand Fishkin interview: The importance of the the Google Search Leak
- URL: https://www.nearmedia.co/ep-159-rand-fiskin-interview-on-the-importance-and-learnings-from-the-google-search-leak/
- Published: 2024-05-31T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2024-06-02T15:33:44.000Z
- Description: Rand Fishkin helps us explore the implications of the Google Web Search leak, how it impacts our understanding of how the search ranking aglo actually works & some thoughts on new tactics to explore
- Author: Near Media
- Tags: Conversations

This week we interviewed [Rand Fishkin of SparkToro](https://sparktoro.com/team/rand?ref=nearmedia.co) on the details and importance of the Google Search API leak. In discussing the “biggest leak of the last 25 years” we look at 

- How it provides SEO practitioners with menu of possible experiments to explore
- The role of Chrome as a source for click through data and what it means for link builders
- How this click through data seems to be one of the most important ranking factors
- Why links on low performing pages have absolutely no value and thus why many citations no longer do either
- Whether Ad clicks might in fact influence rank
- How should we think about “web references” aka mentions vs Links

Segment Reference Articles:

[Aleyda’s spreadsheet of all of the best related articles and tools](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RV4aKGSx5cpnIFmv8w85SdMHcZNvZOUaj5g4KHpM8Wo/htmlview?ref=nearmedia.co#gid=160587763)

[An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them](https://sparktoro.com/blog/an-anonymous-source-shared-thousands-of-leaked-google-search-api-documents-with-me-everyone-in-seo-should-see-them/?ref=nearmedia.co)

[Mike Kings: Secrets from the Algorithm](https://ipullrank.com/google-algo-leak?ref=nearmedia.co)

[Explore connections between the variables/features/modules in the leak](https://ranking-features.streamlit.app/?ref=nearmedia.co)

[Search leak quick search link](https://hexdocs.pm/google%5Fapi%5Fcontent%5Fwarehouse/0.4.0/GoogleApi.ContentWarehouse.V1.Model.LocalsearchChainId.html?ref=nearmedia.co)