About 2,500 technical documents detailing the basics of Google's ranking algorithm have apparently been leaked. If the document is real, it is an unprecedented look at the indeed dominant Internet search engine working. And I got 1 error because google itself stated that it published it to GitHub before deleting the document. But those published on the web do not disappear overnight, and documents are stored elsewhere for posterity.

The leak offers an interesting opportunity to compare the reality of how Google ranks search results with the various claims the company has made about what has so far been a largely mysterious black box. The internal workings of Google Search have long been speculated, but were not actually known outside the company itself - or actually by most Google employees.

This document was shared by Erfan Azimi, SEO advisor at EA Eagle Digital, with longtime SEO specialist Rand Fishkin. Azimi says he shared the documents in the hope of revealing "lies" propagated by Google in relation to the search platform.

It is clearly a very, very bold claim. Frankly, the documentation is incredibly dense and technical, covering a huge array of topics and systems. In a really broad brush word, it covers the types and characters of data that google collects and uses, sites that google promoted for sensitive topics like elections, Google

There are various areas where the analysis of documents claims to throw clear contradictions with Google's claims. For example, in 2016, Google search engineer Paul Haahr said, "Using clicks directly in rankings is a mistake."

However, the document attests that Google uses a system known as NavBoost that directly incorporates various click metrics into page rankings and search results

Other areas that have been highlighted in conflict with previous Google claims include the use of domain permissions, the use of user data collected from the Chrome web browser, and the use of cookies. This includes sandboxing a new website while more data is being collected, such as data from a website that has been accessed by a third party.

If all these claims are true, it's hard to clarify how much of this can choke on a more cynical or ominous motive, as well as how much of it wants to protect search IP from potential competitors.

Further, as far as we can tell, the document doesn't actually reveal exactly how Google currently ranks pages. In other words, this leak is something many observers would have probably been praying for to optimize web pages to improve Google search rankings, it does not appear to go straight forward.

But if the documents are genuine and the claims being made about the implications contained therein are broadly accurate, at least Google has a fairly large scandal in terms of the statements it has made in the past and the credibility and ethics of the company.

For now, it's a pretty big "if". This is a story that won't be resolved overnight. As far as we know, Google has not yet commented on whether the document is genuine, but has provided riposte to the main critique that has followed.

No doubt Google has formulated a detailed response as we write these very words. But we feel it's not the end of it, and the complete shedding from this alleged scandal will be measured in months, if not years.