Google tracks algorithm adjustments, but it surely’s arduous to know what change affected a URL

Alan Bleiweiss, a smart and fun SEO, asked Google’s John Mueller if Google has a “Google Book of Secrets” that saves all algorithmic changes in one place. The short answer is yes, Google saves all the changes it makes, but John’s long answer is that this isn’t always useful.

The question came from 38:26 marks where Alan asked, “Has Google hired someone to log each update and note what aspects of the search are involved? If so, is it” Google’s Book of Secrets “?”

John Mueller said that while Google is documenting all the changes made, he added that it is difficult, even for internal Google purposes, to use this to figure out why a change was made to a particular URL. John said: “It is sometimes really difficult for us to understand for ourselves which of the changes have affected here and what has caused this difference in the ranking.”

Mueller added that even if Google published this, what they kind of did made in the past, would not be helpful. John said, “Even if we give you this kind of log of changes in Google Search, I think it’s really hard to make anything useful out of it.”

Here’s how John answered the question:

I don’t know, Alan. I don’t have a really good answer for you. We keep track of the changes we have made and try to find out what changes over time. But there are many things that change as you search, and sometimes they are hard to trace back. Because these things will be approved at some point and started at some point and if you look at a single URL and see changes there, it is sometimes really difficult for us to understand which of the changes have had an effect here and what caused this difference in the rankings.

Even if we provide you with this kind of google search change log, I think it’s really difficult to make anything useful out of it. And say now that I know Google made this change, I will always update my site to reflect that as you can’t really do the opposite.

Here is the embedding of the video so you can watch it for yourself:

Forum discussion at YouTube community.