Shaun Anderson

The "lastSignificantUpdate" of my article on the The Google Content Warehouse API Leak is... today.

The Hobo SEO Quadrilogy is a collection of 4 ebooks on modern SEO.

Google leak indicates PQ (Page Quality) affects entire site: pqData: “Encoded page-level PQ signals.” in siteQualityStddev: “Estimate of site’s PQ rating stddev–spread of the page-level PQ ratings of a site.”

Contextual SEO: The “It Depends” Edition

Updated: What is E-E-A-T in 2026?

Today: The Google Leak, Page Quality Rating (PQ) and the Rater Connections

@johnmu.com Can I ask, Is 'EEAT Is Not Needed On Non-YMYL Pages"?

That's a fair comment, Terry.

Cheers Matt!

DOJ Vs Google, Trial Leaks and Exploits on my new Youtube playlist:

Download your free ebook "Hobo Technical SEO 2025":

A guide on using HTML headings (H1-H6) for SEO. Learn their role in creating logical document structure and get a checklist for best practices.

A comprehensive SEO tutorial for beginners. Learn how to start an SEO campaign, key on-page optimization techniques, and the principles of high-quality, user-focused content.

A beginner's guide to selecting SEO tools. This framework focuses on white hat strategies & prioritizes data from Google's own tools (Search Console, etc.) & technical crawlers.

Learn how to integrate the Screaming Frog crawler with the Hobo SEO Dashboard in Google Sheets. Automate technical audits, manage crawls, and generate reports with ease.

Get a free Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to manage your SEO projects. The template covers technical audits, site quality, content, and keyword research.

Website speed is critical. Ideal load times are 1-2 seconds. 53% of mobile users will leave a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

What are the Best SEO tools for beginners?

What do you think of my posts on the DOJ Trial/Content Warehouse leaks?

Meet the "Popularity Signal (P*)," a top-level Google ranking signal from the DOJ trial. It uses Chrome data & links to measure a page's popularity and visits.

What is Q* ("Q-star")? Revealed in the DOJ v. Google trial, it's a site-level quality score used by Google to measure a website's overall trustworthiness and authority.

"Quality (Q*) and Popularity (P*) signals help Google determine how frequently to crawl web pages - Google V DOJ

In the era of AI Overviews, authoritative brand mentions are the "new link economy." They are a key E-E-A-T signal for AI systems that rely on consensus.

A key revelation from the DOJ v. Google trial: human quality rater scores are used to directly train core ranking AI models like RankEmbed, shaping search results.

The "Compliance Domino Effect": Complying with Google's guideline on "who is responsible for the site" inherently satisfies over a dozen other rules related to E-E-A-T.

An analysis of the 2024 Google API leak. It confirmed SEO beliefs about site authority, Navboost clicks, and a "sandbox," revealing a modular ranking system.

Understand "Topicality" (T*), a Google ranking system that calculates relevance using "ABC signals": Anchors (anchor text), Body (content), and Clicks (user dwell time).

What is "Entity SEO"? It's optimizing your online presence so Google sees you as a distinct "thing" in its Knowledge Graph—crucial for demonstrating E-E-A-T.

Explore the "Synthetic Content Data Layer Opportunity Gap": a strategy to influence how AI sees your entity by publishing a definitive knowledge base on your own website.

Introducing the Hobo Robot: an autonomous marketing & lead gen system in Google Sheets. It automates content management, reporting, social sharing, and more.