report websites to google

Report Incorrect Phishing Warning

If you received a phishing warning but believe that this is actually a legitimate page, please complete the form below to report the error to Google.

When you submit sites to us, some account and system information will be sent to Google. We will use the information you submit to protect Google products, infrastructure, and users from potentially harmful content. If we determine that a site violates Google’s policies, we may update the site's status in our Transparency Report and share the URL and its status with third parties. You may find out more information about the Transparency Report here . Information about your report will be maintained in accordance with Google's  Privacy Policy  and Terms of Service .

How-To Geek

How to report phishing and malicious websites in google chrome.

Google's new Chrome extension lets you report phishing and other "suspicious websites" in Chrome. Here's how.

Google now makes it much easier to report "suspicious websites" in Chrome. Websites you might want to report include phishing websites, sites hosting malware, and similar bad things. Google will use these reports to block websites for everyone.

This new official browser extension reports bad websites to Google Safe Browsing. That's a service used by web browsers like Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Mozilla Firefox to proactively block malicious websites. Whenever you visit a website, your web browser checks that it doesn't match a list of known-bad sites and gives you a warning message if it does. Think of it like antivirus software with definitions---but it blocks bad websites.

You could previously report malicious websites by heading to Google's Report Phishing Page form and entering the address of the website. You still can---but now there's a Chrome extension that makes this much faster.

To use this it, install the Suspicious Site Reporter from the Chrome Web Store. After installing it, you can click the flag icon on your toolbar to report a bad website.

The extension will let you choose what to submit---the URL of the website and your IP address are mandatory, but you can also choose to share a screenshot of the page, the DOM content (all HTML of the site), and the referrer chain (which shows how you ended up on the suspicious site.)

Google can use these reports from Chrome users to proactively block these suspicious websites for everyone, hopefully making the web a better place.

The company released this Chrome extension on June 18, 2019. This feature goes hand-in-hand with other improvements against "deception" in Chrome , including warnings about confusing URLs like "go0ogle.com" in Chrome 75.

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Report spam, phishing, or malware

If you find information in Google's search results that you believe appears due to spam, paid links, malware, or other quality issues, use one of the following forms. While Google does not use these reports to take direct action against violations, these reports still play a significant role in helping us understand how to improve our spam detection systems that protect our search results.

Spammy, deceptive, or low quality web pages

Ranking manipulation techniques that attempt to compromise the quality of Google's search results violate our spam policies and can negatively impact a site's ranking.

If you believe a site is infected with malware or distributing malicious or unwanted software , notify us.

If you believe you've encountered a page designed to look like another page in an attempt to steal users' personal information, complete the form below to report the page to the Google Safe Browsing team.

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License , and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License . For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies . Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Last updated 2024-03-18 UTC.

Find content feedback, and reporting & appeals tools

We've created a dedicated page to help you find ways to report harmful content on several of our products and services. These tools are important and we work hard to get them right.

Reporting content and giving feedback

Often the option to report will be found in the product or service itself or with its policies. When possible, providing us with complete information will help us investigate your inquiry. To learn more on how we help you, your family, and your devices stay safe online, visit the Safety Center.

Access reporting forms for select products

Other important reporting forms

Reporting Tool

Report illegal content

If you see content on our products or services that you believe violates the law or your rights, let us know. Behaviors like violence or explicit content may also violate our product policies and qualify for removal from our products or services.

Report child safety concerns

Our teams work around-the-clock to identify, remove, and report child sexual abuse and exploitation. If you see content that you believe violates our child sexual abuse and child endangerment policies, please let us know.

Go to our policies and select a product to access its reporting form.

Appealing enforcement actions

Our appeals process aims to ensure due process, efficiency, and transparency for users appealing our enforcement decisions. Different products provide different methods to appeal. You may have the opportunity to take action from your violation notification, and we present a non-exhaustive list of appeals forms linked here. We address incoming appeal requests as quickly as possible to clarify requirements and help users understand the actions taken on their account.

Access appeal forms for select products

Other important forms

ACCOUNT RESTORATION

Request to restore your account

Learn how to restore your disabled account. In some instances, you can find out why your account was disabled, what happens to your account when it’s disabled, and how to download data from your disabled account.

Other redress tools

European Union Redress

Learn about the possibility of out-of-court and judicial redress under the Digital Services Act in the European Union.

Read more about our approach to enforcement, reporting, appeals, and more.

• Apps & Updates

Google Search

Here’s how to directly report spam sites to google.

Many nefarious parties try to manipulate Search to drive more traffic to spam, low-quality, and deceptive websites, and Google is now offering a better way to directly report them.

Google’s “improved” Search Quality User Report (requires Account sign-in) starts by having you enter a page URL with the ability to add other related links. You then specify “What’s wrong with this page?” With six high-level options and the ability to drill down afterwards with “what exactly happened” choices:

• Scraped content Automatically generated content, Keyword stuffing, Thin affiliate pages, Hacked pages, User-generated spam, Other, Unsure
• Cloaking and sneaky redirects, Hidden text and links, Doorway pages, Other, Unsure
• Scam and fraud, Misleading functionality, Other, Unsure

• The page is low quality : “Poorly written or designed page[s] often created in bulk to attract clicks from users rather than to [genuinely] inform or [entertain].”
• Form to enter the “link buying site”
• Other : “Any other search abuse or exploitative SEO strategy not mentioned above.”

Google will also let you enter the “exact query that shows the problem,” while there’s an open text field to share other details.

User feedback helps us identify where our automated spam detection systems may be missing coverage, and is also used to improve our ranking algorithms. Let’s take a look at some of our new form’s features.

After sending a spam report, Google will send you a confirmation email. 

More on Google Search:

• Google Lens can now identify rashes and other skin conditions
• Hands-on: AI-powered ‘SGE’ is scarily sufficient and maybe isn’t Google Search anymore
• How to turn on Google’s new AI Search Generative Experience

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: [email protected]

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I want to report a website that hosts malicious software

To report a site hosting malicious software, use  this form .

Further resources:

• For information on protecting yourself and your personal information, please visit our Safety Center  for tips on staying safe online. 
• To find answers to many common questions and concerns about privacy and user data related to any Google product or service, please visit our Privacy Help Center .

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How to Report Websites with Illegal Content: US & Internationally

Last Updated: April 28, 2024 Fact Checked

• Where to Report (United States)
• Where to Report Internationally

Other Reporting Options

This article was written by Jennifer Mueller, JD and by wikiHow staff writer, Janice Tieperman . Jennifer Mueller is an in-house legal expert at wikiHow. Jennifer reviews, fact-checks, and evaluates wikiHow's legal content to ensure thoroughness and accuracy. She received her JD from Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 2006. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 152,038 times.

If you stumble across a website with illegal content (like sites with fraudulent, scammy, and malicious content), the most important thing you can do is report it to law enforcement—and we’re here to show you how. Read on to find the best ways to report illegal websites, both online and over the phone. In a matter of minutes, you can do your part to make the internet a little bit safer.

Disclaimer: CSEM is short for Child Sexual Exploitation Material. In some parts of the world, it may be referred to as CSAM.

Things You Should Know

• Report websites with illegal content to FBI’s IC3 website if you live in America.
• Report websites with CSEM-related content to the CyberTipline website if you live in America.
• Visit INHOPE’s website to find the proper contact info to report CSEM-related websites to your country’s authorities.

Where to Report Illegal Websites in the USA

• The IC3 is a good place to report most crimes, including fraudulent sites, scam sites/content, and malicious sites/content.
• Tip: If you’d rather report the incident in person, visit the nearest FBI field office in your area.

• You can also use this form to report a website to Google.
• Fraudulent websites peddling investment scams and similar illegal activity can be reported to the SEC here .
• If a site has malware, report it to Google with this form .

• If someone you know is a victim of copyright infringement, send them the link to this form and encourage them to fill it out.

• Facebook: Hit the triple-dot icon on the post, followed by Report post and False information . [2] X Research source
• YouTube: Hit the More … option, followed by Report . Then, select NEXT and give more information on why you’re reporting. [3] X Research source
• Twitter/X: Hit the triple-dot icon on the post, followed by Report Post . [4] X Research source
• Instagram: Hit the triple-dot icon attached to the post, along with Report , False information , and Submit report . [5] X Research source
• TikTok: Select Profile , followed by Menu ☰ . Then, hit Settings and privacy , followed by Report a problem . From there, choose the best topic for your report. [6] X Research source

• For example, if someone is displaying private photos of you without your permission, your local law enforcement may be able to do something about it.
• If someone is directly harassing you or threatening you online and you believe they are a threat to your safety, you should also call local law enforcement.

Where to Report Illegal Websites Internationally

• Call [2] to reach the CAFC, or [3] to reach Cybertip.

• If you live in New Zealand, file your report on this site , or call 638 723 .

• Look in the "help" or "support" section if you're having trouble finding the right place to report. You can also search for the word "report" and see what comes up.
• If the platform is obscured, look towards the bottom of the page. You'll typically find a logo or the name of the platform somewhere towards the bottom, with the copyright information. For example, you might see "Powered by WordPress" on a WordPress page, even if "wordpress" does not appear in the URL.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.who.int/campaigns/connecting-the-world-to-combat-coronavirus/how-to-report-misinformation-online
• ↑ https://www.facebook.com/help/572838089565953?helpref=search&sr=2&query=reporting%20false%20claims&search_session_id=f886d969d0ffdf65b717d0567986859f
• ↑ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802027#zippy=%2Creport-a-video
• ↑ https://help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/report-a-post
• ↑ https://help.instagram.com/1735798276553028
• ↑ https://support.tiktok.com/en/log-in-troubleshoot/troubleshooting/report-a-problem
• ↑ https://tips.fbi.gov/home
• ↑ https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9109

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How to report duplicate websites to Google and protect your content

Table of Contents:

Last updated on: December 21, 2023

Over 1.4 million phishing websites are created every month. As the pandemic forced businesses and customers to move online, it only increased motivation for scammers to duplicate websites and now the number of phishing attacks has tripled since early 2020. 

The goal of scammers when they duplicate websites can be to steal personal information, sell counterfeit products, install malware, or a multitude of other reasons. Whatever their motive might be, the fact is, that content fraud and website duplication can have severe consequences on your business including loss of revenue, impact on business reputation, and negative SEO . 

In this article, we discuss:

Why do people duplicate and steal your website content?

• What are the negative effects of a duplicate website?
• Steps to report duplicate websites to Google

How to prevent your website content from being copied?

Scam or duplicate websites are any fake websites on the internet that deceive people into fraud or malicious online attacks. Scammers are usually looking for a way to make quick profits. In some instances, they may be focused on attacking your brand reputation .

Here are some ways scammers can go about creating fake websites:

Phishing websites: Scammers pose as legitimate businesses to trick customers and get access to their private information.

Counterfeit selling websites : Scammers duplicate genuine brand websites to sell low-quality fake products to unsuspecting customers. 

Malware websites: These are websites with fake security pop-ups that bait users into downloading malware disguised as an antivirus program or any other genuine-looking software.

The negative impact of having a duplicate website

Brand identity.

Your brand identity is unique to your business and helps you stand apart from your competitors. But when duplicate websites start showing up online, customers will find it difficult to differentiate your brand easily. Instead of relating your unique brand identity to high-quality products, the customers may start associating it with scams and frauds.

Loss of revenue

Duplicate websites can eat away at your revenue by redirecting prospective customers from your website to their phishing website. Every sale made on a duplicate website is a sale lost from your business.

Moreover, when customers make purchases on a duplicate website and have a bad experience, they are very likely to not go back to the original website to make another purchase.

Negative SEO impact

Scammers lure internet users to these fake websites by using black hat SEO methods which can help them rank higher than even the original website in search engine results. All of this, in turn, can affect your website’s SEO performance. 

Additionally, Google clearly states as part of its SEO guidelines to avoid duplicate content at all costs. So while your website may be the one with original content whose content was duplicated, Google may end up penalizing both websites – the original and duplicate, for using the same content. 

That is why it is important to report duplicate content to Google as soon as you find it to get the fake websites taken down and ensure it does not affect your website in any way.

How to report duplicate websites to Google?

You can fill out this copyright removal form to send a DMCA notice to the duplicate website owner and get it taken down. Here are the steps to fill up the form:

1- Provide your name, contact information, and the name of your company.

2- Mention if you are the sole copyright owner or reporting on behalf of the copyright owner (Make sure you are logged in from the right Google account since Google will use your contact details to reach you.)

3- Now, you need to provide details of the infringed content and how it is duplicated from your website. 

• Identify and describe the copyrighted work: Describe how your content has been infringed and duplicated as thoroughly as possible. You can also include snippets of the duplicated and original content here.
• Share the location of the authorized example of work: Provide the URLs of your original content that has been duplicated. While you can provide the main website URL, you should also provide examples of specific web page URLs that have been copied directly. 
• Location of infringing material: Now you need to add the URLs of the web pages that have copied your content. Again, while you can add the entire duplicate website here, you should also pull up some web page URLs that clearly show the extent of duplication. 

3- In case multiple websites/URLs are duplicating your content, you can click on the ‘Add a new group’ option to report multiple URLs through the same form.

4- Checkmark the sworn statement, which confirms that you are the main copyright holder of the content and the duplicated content belongs to you. 

5- Click ‘Submit’ and wait for an answer back from Google. It can take anywhere between 2-3 weeks for Google to provide an update.

Please note that this will only get the duplicate website removed from Google Search. Google cannot shut down a website completely. To get the website taken offline, you will have to contact the hosting providers of the duplicate website.

Secure your website code: Encrypt your website code for an extra layer of protection. This prevents scammers from directly viewing your code or content by clicking on ‘view source.’

Disable copy/paste: You can disable copy/paste on all your website pages to ensure scammers cannot just right-click on your content or images to directly copy them. Of course, this doesn’t mean it would become impossible for scammers to copy your website content, they can still use other ways. You can consider this as more of a proactive step that can weed out at least some of the scammers.

Register your intellectual property: Registering for copyrights or trademarks for your business makes it easy to send cease and desist letters or a DMCA notice to duplicate website owners. It can also help you take down fake websites faster when you report them to Google.

Add a copyright notice to your website: Put up a copyright notice somewhere on the sidebar or the bottom of the webpage mentioning that all the copyright of the website belongs to you. Any attempts to infringe the website content will result in strict legal actions.

Monitor the web: Constantly monitor the web for any brand mentions and for any new URLs that may be duplicating your content. You can also use an automated domain takedown solution to remove infringed websites as soon as they go live. Red Points’ domain takedown solution scans the web for duplicate websites 24/7 and reports them right away to get them taken down before they can cause any permanent damage to your brand.

What’s next

Online content infringements and duplication can put your brand at risk, which is why you need to work quickly to protect your brand. Reporting duplicate websites to Google ensures you are proactively fighting against these threats.

See how you can find and remove spoofing sites that take advantage of your brand with Red Points.

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Follow the steps below:

Access the search quality user report form.

• Open your preferred web browser and go to the Google Search Quality User Report page. You can access it by typing the following URL into your browser's address bar: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport .
• If you are not already signed in to your Google Account , you will be prompted to do so. Ensure that you are signed in to the account you wish to use for reporting spam.

Enter the problematic URL

• Once you are signed in, you will see a field where you can enter the URL of the spammy or problematic website that you want to report. Type or paste the URL into this field.
• If there are additional related links or URLs connected to the reported spam site, you can add them in the provided space.

Specify the issue

• Now, you need to specify what is wrong with the reported page. Google provides several categories to help you describe the issue accurately:
• The page displays spammy content: Choose this option if the page contains irrelevant or useless content that manipulates search engine algorithms to appear as relevant results.
• The page engages in spammy behaviour: Select this option if the page engages in abusive behaviour to manipulate search engine rankings.
• The page is deceptive: Use this category if the page does not deliver promised online or real life services with the intent to mislead or defraud users.
• The page is low quality: If the page is poorly written, designed, or created in bulk to attract clicks without providing genuine information or entertainment, choose this category.
• The page contains paid links: If the page includes unnatural, artificial, deceptive, or manipulative inbound or outbound links, report it under this option.
• Other: If the issue doesn't fit into any of the categories above, you can select "Other" and provide more specific details in the text field provided.
• Depending on your selection, you may be asked to provide further details about what exactly happened. Choose the appropriate option or enter additional information as needed.

Describe the problematic query (optional)

• You can also enter the exact query that led you to the problematic page in the provided field. This information can help Google better understand the context of the issue.
• If there are any additional details you'd like to share about the reported spam, you can use the open text field to provide more information.

Submit the report

• Double-check all the information you have entered to ensure accuracy.
• Once you are satisfied with your report, click the "Submit" button.

Confirmation email

After submitting the spam report, Google will send you a confirmation email to acknowledge that they have received your report.

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How To Use The Google Ads Search Terms Report

Maximize your Google Ads profitability with the essential Google Ads Search Terms Report. Learn how to refine your keyword strategy, enhance targeting, and boost your ROI.

One of the most essential aspects of a profitable Google Ads strategy is reaching the right people, with the right message, while they’re searching.

To do this correctly, you need to know exactly how your ads are doing and what words potential customers are using to search.

This is where the Google Ads search terms report comes in handy.

This report is a goldmine and an invaluable asset to every Google Ads account.

With insights into exact phrases being used to trigger your ads, the search terms report can help:

• Significantly refine your keyword strategy.
• Enhance your targeting.
• Boost your return on investment (ROI).

Let’s get into why the Google Ads search terms report is not only helpful but essential for maximizing Google Ads profitability.

What Is The Google Ads Search Terms Report?

The search terms report is a performance tool that shows how your ad performed when triggered by actual searches on the Google Search Network.

The report shows specific terms and phrases that triggered your ad to show, which helps determine if you’re bidding on the right keywords or using the right match types.

If you find search terms that aren’t relevant for your business, you can easily add them to your negative keyword list repository.

This helps you spend your budget more effectively by ensuring your ads are only triggered for relevant, useful searches by potential customers.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between a search term and a keyword:

• Search term:  Shows the exact word or phrase a customer enters on the Google Search Network to trigger an ad.
• Keyword: The word or phrase that Google Ads advertisers target and bid on to show their ads to customers.

How To Create A Search Terms Report

Creating a search terms report in your Google Ads account is simple, and better yet – it can be automated !

To view your search terms report, you’ll need to:

• Log into your Google Ads account.
• Navigate to  “Campaigns” >> “Insights & reports” >> “Search terms”

Below is an example of where to navigate in your Google Ads account to find the search terms report.

After running this report, there are multiple actions you can take as a marketer:

• Add top-performing searches to corresponding ad groups as keywords.
• Select the desired match type (e.g. broad, phrase, exact) if adding new keywords.
• Add irrelevant search terms to a negative keyword list.

3 Ways To Use Search Terms Report Data

As mentioned above, there are numerous ways you can use the search terms report data to optimize campaign performance.

Let’s take a look at three examples of how to use this report to get the best bang for your buck.

1. Refine Existing Keyword Lists

The first area the search terms report can help with is refining existing keyword lists.

By combing through the search terms report, you can find areas of opportunities, including:

• What searches are leading to conversions.
• What searches are irrelevant to the product or service.
• What searches have high impressions but low clicks.
• How searches are being mapped to existing keywords and ad groups.

For searches leading to conversions, it likely makes sense to add those as keywords to an existing ad group or create a new ad group.

If you’re finding some searches to be irrelevant to what you’re selling, it’s best to add them as negative keywords. That prevents your ad from showing up for that search moving forward.

If some searches have a high volume of impressions, but very few clicks, these will take further consideration. If it’s a keyword worth bidding on, it may indicate that the bid strategy isn’t competitive enough – meaning you’ll have to take action on your bid strategy.

If a search term is being triggered by multiple keywords and ad groups, this is a case of cross-pollution of keywords. This can lead to lower ROI because it’s essentially having multiple keywords bid on that search term, which can drive up the cost. If this happens, you have a few options:

• Review and update existing keyword match types as necessary.
• Add negative keywords where appropriate at the ad group or campaign level to avoid cross-pollution.

Ultimately, using the search terms report in this way allows you to determine what is performing well and eliminate poor performers.

2. Understand How Your Audience Is Actually Searching For Your Product

Something I often see is a mismatch of how a company talks about its product or service vs. how a customer is actually searching for it in the real world.

If you’re bidding on keywords you think describe your product or service but are not getting any traction, you could be misaligning expectations.

Oftentimes, searches that lead to conversions are from terms you wouldn’t have thought to bid on without looking at the search terms report.

One of this report’s most underutilized use cases is finding lesser-known ways customers are searching for and finding your product.

Finding these types of keywords may result in the creation of a new campaign, especially if the search terms don’t fit existing ad group structures.

Building out campaigns by different search themes allows for appropriate bidding strategies for each because not all keyword values are created equal!

Understanding how a customer is describing their need for a product or service not only helps your keyword strategy but can lead to better-aligned product positioning.

This leads us to a third way the search term report can help your campaigns.

3. Optimize Ad Copy and Landing Pages

As discussed in #2, customers’ language and phrases can provide valuable insights into their needs and preferences.

Marketers can use the search terms report to better tailor ad copy , making it more relevant and appealing to prospective customers.

And let’s not forget about the corresponding landing page!

Once a user clicks on an ad, they expect to see an alignment of what they searched for and what is presented on a website.

Make sure that landing page content is updated regularly to better match the searcher’s intent.

This can result in a better user experience and an improvement in conversion rates.

How Using The Search Terms Report Can Help ROI

All three examples above are ways that the search terms report can improve campaign ROI.

Let’s take a look at each example further.

How Refining Keywords Helps ROI

Part of refining existing keywords is negating any irrelevant search terms that trigger an ad.

Having a solid negative keyword strategy gets rid of “unwanted” spending on keywords that don’t make sense.

That previously “wasted” spend then gets redirected to campaigns that regularly drive higher ROI.

Additionally, adding top-performing search terms gives you better control from a bid strategy perspective.

Being able to pull the appropriate levers and setting proper bid strategies by search theme ultimately leads to better ROI.

How Understanding Audience Intent Helps ROI

By understanding the exact language and search terms that potential customers use, marketers can update ad copy and landing pages to better match those searches.

This can increase ad relevance and Ad Rank within Google Ads.

These items help with keyword Quality Score, which can help reduce CPCs as your Quality Score increases.

More relevant ads likely lead to higher click-through rates, which leads to a higher likelihood of converting those users!

How Updating Ad Copy And Landing Pages Helps ROI

This example goes hand-in-hand with the above recommendation.

As you start to better understand the audience’s search intent, updating ad copy and landing pages to reflect their search indicates better ad relevance.

Once a user clicks on that relevant ad, they find the content of the landing page matches better to what they’re looking for.

This enhanced relevance can significantly increase the likelihood of conversion, which ultimately boosts ROI .

Use This Report To Make Data-Driven Decisions

Google Ads is an integral part of any digital marketing strategy , often accounting for a large portion of your marketing budget.

By regularly reviewing the search terms report, you can refine your marketing budget to make your Google Ads campaigns more effective.

Using this report to make data-driven decisions that fine-tune multiple facets of campaign management leads to more effective ad spending, higher conversions, and ultimately higher ROI.

More resources: 

• Google Ads Checklist: 5 Ways To Audit & Optimize Your Campaigns To Boost Results 
• An In-Depth Guide To Google Ads
• PPC Trends 2024

Featured Image: FGC/Shutterstock

Brooke serves as the Director of Growth Marketing at Smith Micro Software, with over 10 years of paid media experience. ...

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Google won’t comment on a potentially massive leak of its search algorithm documentation

A purported leak of 2,500 pages of internal documentation from google sheds light on how search, the most powerful arbiter of the internet, operates..

By Mia Sato , platforms and communities reporter with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools.

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Google’s search algorithm is perhaps the most consequential system on the internet, dictating what sites live and die and what content on the web looks like . But how exactly Google ranks websites has long been a mystery, pieced together by journalists, researchers, and people working in search engine optimization.

Now, an explosive leak that purports to show thousands of pages of internal documents appears to offer an unprecedented look under the hood of how Search works — and suggests that Google hasn’t been entirely truthful about it for years. So far, Google hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment on the legitimacy of the documents.

Rand Fishkin, who worked in SEO for more than a decade, says a source shared 2,500 pages of documents with him with the hopes that reporting on the leak would counter the “lies” that Google employees had shared about how the search algorithm works. The documents outline Google’s search API and break down what information is available to employees, according to Fishkin.

The details shared by Fishkin are dense and technical, likely more legible to developers and SEO experts than the layperson. The contents of the leak are also not necessarily proof that Google uses the specific data and signals it mentions for search rankings. Rather, the leak outlines what data Google collects from webpages, sites, and searchers and offers indirect hints to SEO experts about what Google seems to care about, as SEO expert Mike King wrote in his overview of the documents.

The leaked documents touch on topics like what kind of data Google collects and uses, which sites Google elevates for sensitive topics like elections, how Google handles small websites, and more. Some information in the documents appears to be in conflict with public statements by Google representatives, according to Fishkin and King.

“‘Lied’ is harsh, but it’s the only accurate word to use here,” King writes. “While I don’t necessarily fault Google’s public representatives for protecting their proprietary information, I do take issue with their efforts to actively discredit people in the marketing, tech, and journalism worlds who have presented reproducible discoveries.”

Google has not responded to The Verge’ s requests for comment regarding the documents, including a direct request to refute their legitimacy. Fishkin told The Verge in an email that the company has not disputed the veracity of the leak, but that an employee asked him to change some language in the post regarding how an event was characterized.

Google’s secretive search algorithm has birthed an entire industry of marketers who closely follow Google’s public guidance and execute it for millions of companies around the world. The pervasive, often annoying tactics have led to a general narrative that Google Search results are getting worse, crowded with junk that website operators feel required to produce to have their sites seen. In response to The Verge ’s past reporting on the SEO-driven tactics, Google representatives often fall back to a familiar defense: that’s not what the Google guidelines say.

But some details in the leaked documents call into question the accuracy of Google’s public statements regarding how Search works.

One example cited by Fishkin and King is whether Google Chrome data is used in ranking at all. Google representatives have repeatedly indicated that it doesn’t use Chrome data to rank pages, but Chrome is specifically mentioned in sections about how websites appear in Search. In the screenshot below, which I captured as an example, the links appearing below the main vogue.com URL may be created in part using Chrome data, according to the documents.

Another question raised is what role, if any, E-E-A-T plays in ranking. E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, a Google metric used to evaluate the quality of results . Google representatives have previously said E-E-A-T isn’t a ranking factor . Fishkin notes that he hasn’t found much in the documents mentioning E-E-A-T by name.

King, however, detailed how Google appears to collect author data from a page and has a field for whether an entity on the page is the author. A portion of the documents shared by King reads that the field was “mainly developed and tuned for news articles... but is also populated for other content (e.g., scientific articles).” Though this doesn’t confirm that bylines are an explicit ranking metric, it does show that Google is at least keeping track of this attribute. Google representatives have previously insisted that author bylines are something website owners should do for readers, not Google, because it doesn’t impact rankings.

Though the documents aren’t exactly a smoking gun, they provide a deep, unfiltered look at a tightly guarded black box system. The US government’s antitrust case against Google — which revolves around Search — has also led to internal documentation becoming public, offering further insights into how the company’s main product works.

Google’s general caginess on how Search works has led to websites looking the same as SEO marketers try to outsmart Google based on hints the company offers. Fishkin also calls out the publications credulously propping up Google’s public claims as truth without much further analysis.

“Historically, some of the search industry’s loudest voices and most prolific publishers have been happy to uncritically repeat Google’s public statements. They write headlines like ‘Google says XYZ is true,’ rather than ‘Google Claims XYZ; Evidence Suggests Otherwise,’” Fishkin writes. “Please, do better. If this leak and the DOJ trial can create just one change, I hope this is it.”

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Google’s A.I. Search Errors Cause a Furor Online

The company’s latest A.I. search feature has erroneously told users to eat glue and rocks, provoking a backlash among users.

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By Nico Grant

Reporting from New York

Last week, Google unveiled its biggest change to search in years, showcasing new artificial intelligence capabilities that answer people’s questions in the company’s attempt to catch up to rivals Microsoft and OpenAI.

The new technology has since generated a litany of untruths and errors — including recommending glue as part of a pizza recipe and the ingesting of rocks for nutrients — giving a black eye to Google and causing a furor online.

The incorrect answers in the feature, called AI Overview, have undermined trust in a search engine that more than two billion people turn to for authoritative information. And while other A.I. chatbots tell lies and act weird , the backlash demonstrated that Google is under more pressure to safely incorporate A.I. into its search engine.

The launch also extends a pattern of Google’s having issues with its newest A.I. features immediately after rolling them out. In February 2023, when Google announced Bard, a chatbot to battle ChatGPT, it shared incorrect information about outer space. The company’s market value subsequently dropped by $100 billion.

This February, the company released Bard’s successor, Gemini , a chatbot that could generate images and act as a voice-operated digital assistant. Users quickly realized that the system refused to generate images of white people in most instances and drew inaccurate depictions of historical figures.

With each mishap, tech industry insiders have criticized the company for dropping the ball. But in interviews, financial analysts said Google needed to move quickly to keep up with its rivals, even if it meant growing pains.

Google “doesn’t have a choice right now,” Thomas Monteiro, a Google analyst at Investing.com, said in an interview. “Companies need to move really fast, even if that includes skipping a few steps along the way. The user experience will just have to catch up.”

Lara Levin, a Google spokeswoman, said in a statement that the vast majority of AI Overview queries resulted in “high-quality information, with links to dig deeper on the web.” The A.I.-generated result from the tool typically appears at the top of a results page.

“Many of the examples we’ve seen have been uncommon queries, and we’ve also seen examples that were doctored or that we couldn’t reproduce,” she added. The company will use “isolated examples” of problematic answers to refine its system.

Since OpenAI released its ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022 and it became an overnight sensation, Google has been under pressure to integrate A.I. into its popular apps. But there are challenges in taming large language models, which learn from enormous amounts of data taken from the open web — including falsehoods and satirical posts — rather than being programmed like traditional software.

(The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, in December, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems.)

Google announced AI Overview to fanfare at its annual developer conference, I/O, last week. For the first time, the company had plugged Gemini, its latest large language A.I. model, into its most important product, its search engine.

AI Overview combines statements generated from its language models with snippets from live links across the web. It can cite its sources, but does not know when that source is incorrect.

The system was designed to answer more complex and specific questions than regular search. The result, the company said, was that the public would be able to benefit from all that Gemini could do, taking some of the work out of searching for information.

But things quickly went awry, and users posted screenshots of problematic examples to social media platforms like X.

AI Overview instructed some users to mix nontoxic glue into their pizza sauce to prevent the cheese from sliding off, a fake recipe it seemed to borrow from an 11-year-old Reddit post meant to be a joke. The A.I. told other users to ingest at least one rock a day for vitamins and minerals — advice that originated in a satirical post from The Onion .

As the company’s cash cow, Google search is “the one property Google needs to keep relevant/trustworthy/useful,” Gergely Orosz, a software engineer with a newsletter on technology, Pragmatic Engineer, wrote on X . “And yet, examples on how AI overviews are turning Google search into garbage are all over my timeline.”

People also shared examples of Google’s telling users in bold font to clean their washing machines using “chlorine bleach and white vinegar,” a mixture that when combined can create harmful chlorine gas. In a smaller font, it told users to clean with one, then the other.

Social media users have tried to one-up one another with who could share the most outlandish responses from Google. In some cases, they doctored the results. One manipulated screenshot appeared to show Google saying that a good remedy for depression was jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, citing a Reddit user. Ms. Levin, the Google spokeswoman, said that the company’s systems never returned that result.

AI Overview did, however, struggle with presidential history, saying that 17 presidents were white and that Barack Obama was the first Muslim president, according to screenshots posted to X.

It also said Andrew Jackson graduated from college in 2005 .

Kevin Roose contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a Google result from the company’s new artificial-intelligence tool AI Overview. A social media commenter claimed that a result for a search on depression suggested jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge as a remedy. That result was faked, a Google spokeswoman said, and never appeared in real results.

How we handle corrections

Nico Grant is a technology reporter covering Google from San Francisco. Previously, he spent five years at Bloomberg News, where he focused on Google and cloud computing. More about Nico Grant

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Google’s A.I. capabilities that answer people’s questions have generated a litany of untruths and errors  — including recommending glue as part of a pizza recipe and the ingesting of rocks for nutrients — causing a furor online.

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After some trying years during which Mark Zuckerberg could do little right, many developers and technologists have embraced the Meta chief  as their champion of “open-source” A.I.

D’Youville University in Buffalo had an A.I. robot speak at its commencement . Not everyone was happy about it.

A new program, backed by Cornell Tech, M.I.T. and U.C.L.A., helps prepare lower-income, Latina and Black female computing majors  for A.I. careers.

Publishers have long worried that A.I.-generated answers on Google would drive readers away from their sites. They’re about to find out if those fears are warranted, our tech columnist writes .

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Google’s in-house docs about search ranking leak online, sparking SEO frenzy

Github trove details api features that 'contradict' big g’s public statements about how its engine works.

Updated A trove of documents that appear to describe how Google ranks search results has appeared online, likely as the result of accidental publication by an in-house bot.

The leaked documentation describes an old version of Google's Content Warehouse API and provides a glimpse of Google Search’s inner workings.

The material appears to have been inadvertently committed to a publicly accessible Google-owned repository on GitHub around March 13 by the web giant's own automated tooling. That automation tacked an Apache 2.0 open source license on the commit, as is standard for Google's public documentation. A follow-up commit on May 7 attempted to undo the leak.

The material was nonetheless spotted by Erfan Azimi , CEO of search engine optimization (SEO) biz EA Digital Eagle and were then disclosed on Sunday by fellow SEO operatives Rand Fishkin, CEO of SparkToro and Michael King, CEO of iPullRank.

These documents do not contain code or the like, and instead describe how to use Google's Content Warehouse API that's likely intended for internal use only; the leaked documentation includes numerous references to internal systems and projects. While there is a similarly named Google Cloud API that's already public, what ended up on GitHub goes well beyond that, it seems.

The files are noteworthy for what they reveal about the things Google considers important when ranking web pages for relevancy, a matter of enduring interest to anyone involved in the SEO business and/or anyone operating a website and hoping Google will help it to win traffic.

Among the 2,500-plus pages of documentation, assembled for easy perusal here , there are details on more than 14,000 attributes accessible or associated with the API, though scant information about whether all these signals are used and their importance. It is therefore hard to discern the weight Google applies to the attributes in its search result ranking algorithm.

But SEO consultants believe the documents contain noteworthy details because they differ from public statements made by Google representatives.

"Many of [Azimi's] claims [in an email describing the leak] directly contradict public statements made by Googlers over the years, in particular the company’s repeated denial that click-centric user signals are employed, denial that subdomains are considered separately in rankings, denials of a sandbox for newer websites, denials that a domain’s age is collected or considered, and more," explained SparkToro’s Fishkin in a report .

iPullRank’s King, in his post on the documents, pointed to a statement made by Google search advocate John Mueller, who said in a video that "we don’t have anything like a website authority score" – a measure of whether Google considers a site authoritative and therefore worthy of higher rankings for search results.

But King notes that the docs reveal that as part of the Compressed Quality Signals Google stores for documents, a "siteAuthority" score can be calculated.

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Several other revelations are cited in the two posts.

One is the importance of clicks – and different types of clicks (good, bad, long, etc.) – are in determining how a webpage rankings. Google during the US v. Google antitrust trial acknowledged [PDF] that it considers click metrics as a ranking factor in web search.

Another is that Google uses websites viewed in Chrome as a quality signal, seen in the API as the parameter ChromeInTotal . "One of the modules related to page quality scores features a site-level measure of views from Chrome," according to King.

Additionally, the documents indicate that Google considers other factors like content freshness, authorship, whether a page is related to a site's central focus, alignment between page title and content, and "the average weighted font size of a term in the doc body."

Google did not respond to a request for comment. ®

Updated to add

Post-publication Google has told The Register that everyone needs to calm down, and be aware that the accidentally revealed files may be missing vital context.

"We would caution against making inaccurate assumptions about Search based on out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information," a spokesperson told us. "We've shared extensive information about how Search works and the types of factors that our systems weigh, while also working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation."

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