Google Engineer Reveals the SEO Algorithm

In this episode #3005, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss how Google’s ranking algorithm works and why controlling your narrative matters in organizations. They explore how storytelling drives business growth while tackling the challenges of misinformation in society. The episode underscores the need for transparency and clear communication in a noisy digital world. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES (00:00) Understanding Google's Ranking Algorithm (02:58) The Importance of Narrative in Organizations (06:08) Controlling Corporate Narratives (09:00) The Power of Storytelling in Business (11:42) Misinformation and Its Impact on Society To suggest a topic, go to https://www.marketingschool.io. For more content from Eric and Neil, check out Eric’s Leveling Up with Eric Siu YouTube channel and Neil’s Neil Patel YouTube channel. Connect with Us: Single Grain << Eric's ad agency NP Digital << Neil’s ad agency X @neilpatel, @ericosiu Instagram @neilpatel, @ericosiu Drop Us a Review If You Enjoyed the Episode!

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:35Speaker 00

  Did you see this Matt Diggity post where he's just, he wrote that a Google engineer just revealed in court how their ranking algorithm actually works? Now-

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Google?

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. But on the other side, like-

• 0:45Speaker 01

  They've had that for a while.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  But also, who cares? Because like, because it's all changing quickly. Have they had this for a while? I didn't know that.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Remember the Google leaked document with a thousand something documents, or 2,000, or 4,000, whatever the number was, that broke down their algorithm?

• 0:57Speaker 00

  We don't have to talk about, but there's this ABC framework. Do you know what this is?

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Uh-uh.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  So I'm reading this for the first time. So a Google engineer just revealed in court how their ranking algorithm actually works. And it's way simpler than most how SEO experts see it. They use what's called the ABC framework. So number one, A, anchors, so backlinks pointing to your page. B, body, how well your content matches to what people search for. C, clicks, how long people stay before going back to Google. Google calls this topicality, which is just their way of saying, how relevant is this page compared to what someone searched for? Okay, so this is just, I mean, I think of my YouTube channel at the same time, your YouTube channel. It's just how topical authority, or how relevant is this content compared to what the user searched for, and how long are people staying for? And to click the rate. And it's kind of the same thing.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  It goes back to basic fundamentals. They're looking at usage more than anything else.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  Yep. So, no new news here, despite what this Google engineer revealed. But, do you want to pick the next one?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Alright, next one.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Let's see, I'm trying to load up.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Here, I'll give you one before you load it. So, the.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Too many damn open tabs.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  One thing I saw recently is that in your company, right? And I don't know how often, how often do you appear at your company? Like to, like a, an all hands meeting or something like that? Do you appear at all?

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Oh, no, you don't.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  You know, I learned about the all hand meetings the same time. Like, oh, who's showing up? Whole company. I was like, oh, okay.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  So, so how often does it happen? Once a month?

• 2:27Speaker 01

  The all hand meetings, how often I show up?

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Both.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  I don't know how often they do them.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  And I don't know when I last showed up.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  Okay, let, okay, let me speak, let me speak to my experience. Cause we're a smaller company, right? And I'm, I'm, I'm actually in it right now, operating. So I'm very much in the trenches, right? So what I've noticed, and I don't know if you'll be able to relate to this at all. I don't think you will be able to. But I've noticed that you've got to tell the stories and you've got to drive the narrative or else others will start to create their own, right? So let's say, you know, recently, we might've moved on from a couple of people, right? And so I was talking to someone, it's like, they start to create this narrative in their head. Oh, like maybe the company's not doing well. Or it's like, no, like I actually listed out like, no, it's this one, this performance over here. This happened over here. Oh, actually, no, we're still working with this person over here, right? And you gotta, if you don't keep, if someone's not constantly communicating, it doesn't have to be you, Neil. Something's like, people are gonna start to create stories in their head, right?

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Or like, I heard this story a while back. It's like, oh, it seems like, you know, all Eric cares about is like the bottom line or something like that.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Really?

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Or like, all Eric care, like, it doesn't seem like Eric cares or something like that, right? And it's like.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  But wait, wait, where are they getting this from?

• 3:36Speaker 00

  They start to create narratives in their head, right? And until you break the narrative and you, you start to tell more stories and then say how things are actually going and what the vision is, and you have to keep reinforcing it. It, it like, you can't carry the for, the company forward. There needs to be someone leading and shouting from the top. And in your case, it's not you, but you still have someone that's constantly driving the cadence. You know what I mean?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yes, we do. But why would you think that people within your organization? Get this narrative like where do you think it's coming?

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Well, this in this specific case, this person was frustrated and once I talked to this person like you basically like talked them off a ledge. Right. Um, but in this person, they weren't, I, I think it's like once, sometimes when you're frustrated, it's easier to lash out. And it's like the moment you start to ask like, well, what evidence do you have that Eric doesn't care? Cause like Eric's in it every day. Or like, do you have, do you have evidence that Eric put millions of dollars back into this company over the last couple of years to save the thing? Like, and it hasn't really, you know what I mean? And so like, it's, it's, um,

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Oh, they don't care. They're, they're gonna do whatever they want to do and they're gonna think that,

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  You know, what's best for them at that moment is what they,

• 4:38Speaker 00

  And it's hard to change that narrative, right? But if you're constantly driving it and you're, you're trying to keep everyone aligned, then that's why it's important for you. Like someone needs to do it and you agree, right? Even though it's not you, someone's doing it.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Someone's doing it. Yeah. I think it's very important because it aligns everyone.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  It is marketing.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  It is marketing.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  And it does get rid of misconceptions. And if you don't do it, then,

• 4:57Speaker 00

  It's gonna start to bubble up.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  And then what happens is people internally, they start talking and then it gets worse and worse and worse.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  And then the story evolves. It's like telephone. It becomes crazier and crazier. Until you like show them how things are actually going and you tell them. So it's in this case, it's good to be transparent. And this is why people talk about being the chief reminder officer or repeating your core values or repeating your mission over and over and over. Cause it's really easy to let it slide. Yeah. But go ahead.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  So thi- this is, okay. So you, you have how many people within your organization, rough?

• 5:28Speaker 00

  I call it 50 ish.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Okay. So if you have 50 ish people and certain people think that you, you yourself only care about ROI. If you don't participate in some of these, I wouldn't call them all hands. What ends up happening? Do they just keep spreading it? Does it get worse and worse for you?

• 5:46Speaker 00

  I'll tell you when everything was destruction, four or five years ago, Noah was part of this, everything was destruction. We did the two acquisitions, right? What started happening was like it's, we had that one, the saboteur that was spreading this, oh,

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Leadership hates you all. Eric, Eric doesn't believe in you. Eric actually hates you. And so it starts to spread, right?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  And then, and then what ends up happening is you start to talk to people during your exit interview. One guy's like, man, I just want us to win. He resides the next day, right? And so it starts to create this, this domino effect, this, this snowball effect. And if the snowball becomes too big, you can't push it down anymore, right? So I learned at that moment that I have to be involved in some way, shape or form, right? Even if I'm in the back trying to drive things and say, hey, this is what the story is. This is what the vision is.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  That's, that's what you have to do. Otherwise, again, it starts to become its own monster. And then not only that, you're no longer focused on your customers. You're not even focused on your business anymore. You're focused on this crisis control thing.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Do you want to hear the craziest thing someone said about me the other day?

• 6:47Speaker 00

  What?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  So I don't know where they ended up reading this from. And they started telling some of our team members internally. The new narrative was Neil is killing people in India.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  What?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm like, I don't want anyone to die, but I'm like, where the heck are they getting this crap from? I'm like, I don't even go to India. How am I killing people? And someone came up to one of our colleagues, my coworkers at a conference. And they said, Neil's been killing people in India, like actually killing people. And then they knew that I'm not actually killing people in India. And then I was like, okay, it sucks that people are saying this. But like, what can I do? If someone doesn't have common sense.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  You know, like, I can't solve this.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  This is how these narrative, like you gotta just do what you can to control it. You can't force them to believe something, but at least you can get your point out. And I think it's important to get that point out.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Very important to get your point out.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  And I did address it with some of our internal people because. Even though they believe that I'm not killing people, right? Which is a really far stretch narrative. Talk about me doing something in business or marketing. You can even try to say I'm doing unethical stuff. That could be potentially more believable, but like actually committing murder? Like actually killing people? Yeah. In a country I barely ever go to?

• 8:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Uh, and they weren't saying like I'm paying people, they're like, I'm actually like killing people.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  Yourself with your bare hands.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  I'm like, okay, you know, I don't know how to solve it, but I was like, look, I appreciate you guys believing that I'm not killing. I'm like, I can share my travel schedule with you guys. I can show you when I'm in India, I can share my passport.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Uh, stamps. And the reason I just said that is because it's like, I just want to nip it in the butt.

• 8:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  You know?

• 8:35Speaker 00

  It's not nip it in the butt, it's the bud. I, I, I Googled this.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  It's bud?

• 8:38Speaker 00

  B U D, that's not the bud. I used to think it was the butt, but it's not the butt.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  It's not butt, it's bud.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, B U D, nip it in the bud, right Noah?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  I, I believe you.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Nip it in the butt.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Is it bud Noah?

• 8:47Speaker 00

  B U D.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Uh, I always says nip it in the butt.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  Dude, I hope you don't say those on calls.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. But, I mean, that's like, the stories, you tell stories or else others will create their own. So that.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  And you don't want their narrative. And what I've also found in the corporate world, you can tell your story and you can show facts. And even when you do that, some people may not believe you, like when it's just like black and white. And I'll, I'll give you an example of this. I know someone. They had a business issue um with someone in their organization and something happened with money or whatnot. And people didn't like uh him or her. Uh, they liked the other person. And the other person was screwing over the team and wasn't going to pay him any more money.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  So then the person I know was making sure their team was getting paid even if they had to put money out of pocket. And people still hated them because the other person who screwed him over was saying bad things. And I'm like, so people are hating on you when you are giving your team money. And they're believing the guy who screwed him over. And I was like, no matter what you tell people, there's always going to be some people who don't believe the narrative, even if it's true and you show them data. They're just brainwashed.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the final thing on this and we can move on. I think it's,

• 10:28Speaker 00

  as long as you know that you're consistent with your behaviors and your habits every day, that's the best that you can ask for. And then you can, again, you can't force someone to change their mind. And so all you can do is try to be the best person that you can be. Because people will make up narratives like, for example, Eric doesn't care about, oh, yeah, all Eric cares about is like his ego and like, you know, creating content online and you know, his, his, uh, his personal brand or whatever. I've never once seen that. I could never care less, right? I just, we're doing it to try to drive more leads, right? And, and then like, it's, that's what I mean. Like, as long as you know that you're doing your best, that's all. Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson shows how modern brands grow by removing the friction in their marketing and customer experience that pushes customers away every single day, often without leaders even realizing it. Each episode delivers practical insights, real brand examples, and conversations with marketing leaders, showing brands how to win with the new rules of growth, identity-driven marketing, cultural relevance, and frictionless customer experiences. Listen to Frictionless Growth Marketing wherever you get your podcasts.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I've also seen you create content that gets tons of views. You're like, I'm going to test this out. I'm like, Eric, why are you doing this? It gets tons of views. A month or two later, hey, Eric, why'd you stop doing it? Gets tons of views, no revenue. Who cares for reviews if it doesn't, who cares for reviews if it doesn't convert? Well, if you really cared for ego and your brand, you'd go back to creating.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Oh, I'd go all in on that all.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  You're doing the opposite.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Might even have OnlyFans.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Do what?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Someone yesterday told me that they're gonna get into OF, okay?

• 12:04Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  And I was like, like, online finance? And I was like, what's OF? And they're like, they're like, oh, OnlyFans. And I was like, oh, I thought you meant something with finance. Cause I couldn't put two and two together. And the way they told me they're gonna get into OnlyFans is they wanna be an agency that helps people market um their OnlyFans account. And I don't know much about it, but remember you and I were in Germany? Yeah, when we were in Germany, I was like, I think I met a kid.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Who did this and he made a killing. Although when he made the OnlyFans people too much money, they got lazy and stopped working, which then reduced his income. But one quick thing before we switch topics. The, the problem with the narratives and stories uh and what people believe, I think social media creates a big problem today. And a prime example of this is um you look at Middle East. So I saw this clip on Instagram that someone sent me. And I'm not trying to get political. I'm not saying I'm for Israel, for Gaza or any of that, you know? I'll keep my opinions to myself. But there was this lady who did an interview on Instagram. And she was interviewing people, or at least I saw it on Instagram,

• 13:17Speaker 01

  who were in the LGBTQ plus uh group. And she was talking to him about Israel and they were hating on Israel. They were all about free Palestine. Israel's a terrible place in the Middle East. I'm not saying that's what I believe or anything. I'm just telling you what happened in the video. And she was like, uh, are you in the LGBTQ plus? And they're like, yes, I am, you know? And they didn't all specify uh their preference, doesn't matter. Um, it's, you know, whatever they personally prefer is what they personally prefer. And she shows him a clip of someone getting tortured. She's like, what do you see here? Oh, someone getting tortured. And they're like, they're in the Middle East. Do you know why they're getting tortured? And then she shows a picture of them pretty much being killed or getting actually really killed, which was sad.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  And they're like, oh, crazy, like, what happened? They found out that the person was gay, so they killed him, which is terrible, right? Like, no one should ever be killed.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Uh, especially for that. It's like, dude, what does that have to do? What, how does that harm you? It doesn't harm you. Let them be with their lives.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Right? And then they're like, do you know where this happened? And then they tell them, you know, in the Middle East and where? And they're like, do you know where the only place where you can be LGBTQ plus in the Middle East and be supported?

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Israel.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Israel, they have one of the largest parades.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  And then a lot of the people in that video were like, oh, I had to do my research still and double check. And I was like, oh, my god.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Which I think is a fair statement, though.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  They should verify, yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  They, they should verify, but they didn't want to change their tune.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  And they're just like, so.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Well, if this is true, what would you think? Yeah.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but even then, they didn't want to admit that they were wrong and they wanted to stick with their stand.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Violation.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  It's a what?

• 15:01Speaker 00

  It's a narrative violation.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Yes, and I was just like, so someone showing you facts? And you can just Google right then and there? And some of them were actually open and they changed their mind?

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  But a lot of people were just stuck in their ways and were open to the concept of change. I'm not saying they had to change right there, but just being open to it.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  Dude, you know what's funny? So this morning I was getting my blood drawn, right? And I had like a, like a Russian nurse helping me. She's like, you know, the problem with America today is we're too liberal here, right? She's like, she's like, the good thing about Putin is that he sets the tone. And like, he's just, she, she was making the same point around, um, the, it's really easy to brainwash people, especially people that are early twenties or teens or so, right? And they start to follow like, that's why social media, this, this stuff blows up. And it's really easy to just change someone's mind and then almost like corrupted a little bit. Um, because people don't, they just look at whatever TikTok they see. And then like, oh yeah, okay, that makes sense. I can get with that. And then all of a sudden, you know, you have a, a, a growing population of people who seem to be brainwashed. But anyway, this is not a political show.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  No, but, but if you go to places like, uh, Germany and places in Europe, posting misinformation or something that's defaming against another individual could cause.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  Do you see the British guy that got arrested this week?

• 16:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  He had a, he had a sign that said, and by the way, we're not saying we support or not support, but he's like, basically, I think he was calling out, saying that if you're trans, like basically you are mentally ill. So he wrote that, right? But in America, that's freedom of speech, right?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  And so again, we're not saying we agree or disagree, right? But he, there's a video of him getting arrested. He's like, I haven't done anything. Like I just had a sign that said that, right? I'm not inciting violence or anything. It wasn't saying like, oh, let's, let's go destroy them or anything. He was just saying that, right? And so that's what's happening. That's what you're saying, right?

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Yes, but in, in, in Germany and places like that, you're seeing certain countries have laws where if you say things that can be hurtful, you can get in trouble. Or a, example of like the mental illness one that you said, you can get in trouble for it. But the way I think things need to be adjusted from a marketing standpoint, at least a bit from a business perspective. If people are just putting out misinformation, and what I mean misinformation, like two plus two is eight, right? We all know two plus two is four. Like when something is like factually, but on purpose, they're saying it's intentional, there should be a way for things to just get scrubbed.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Cause I think there's just way too much misinformation on the internet that is screwing up marketing for so many companies. Like, um, we see this as an example of social media. We're seeing a huge trend of companies starting to pay us money to do their social media marketing for stuff that would be considered quote unquote boring and ugly. And these are publicly traded companies. They're not in the sexiest verticals. They're doing this for stuff that helps with earning calls, investor relations, a CEO reputation of them talking about things like, you know, being green or saving the earth or be more energy efficient. Because they're worried about false narratives that people put online about a corporation that can just be off.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  I, I think, look, if there's any takeaway from this, and then we can move, finally move on after this. Is the storytellers are often the ones that can really drive change in the world, right? You look at Martin Luther King, for example, good storyteller, right? You can even say that the this the Zohan, whoever, the the New York like candidate, right?

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  Really good at inspiring people and like he is telling the story and he's rallying people, right? And again, we're not saying right or wrong on on any side, but the better you are storytelling, like go read this book called Storyworthy, great book. The more you're going to be able to get the things that you want done, whether it's a, and hopefully it's good stuff.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Yes, and the more extreme your story is, the more likely it is to resonate with the portion of the audience.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, and the more you talk to a broader audience, for example, Eat the Rich, right? Like, that's a story that seems to resonate very quickly with like the broader audience. And the the wealth gap is in increasing. That's easy to get behind, right? And then all of a sudden, then you get revolution, right?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  And I hope that doesn't happen, but yeah. So we're gonna end the episode. See you guys later. Please don't forget to rate, view, subscribe.