Mobile SEO: Trial testimony confirmed human quality raters evaluate sites exclusively on mobile, making mobile UX a primary input for a site's foundational quality score.

Linkbuilding tip for those in it for the long term: Build links by linking out. Simple. The more you link out to good sources, the more links you get.

🚨 Forgive me, I normally reply to all comments and DMS on here but I am a bit busy with work the next month and Ive a lot of messages. I will respond, just need to dig in for a while.

“Hobo: Beginner SEO 2025” - Free PDF you can download now.

Use a mobile-first approach for design and content, and optimise page load speed tiimes

Beginners: Optimise for Core Web Vitals like loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability to improve user experience and boost your search rankings

New: Hobo Technical SEO 2025 (free ebook)

QBST is Google's internal name for what SEOs have been describing for years using terms like "co-occurring words," "topical authority," and (less accurately) "LSI Keywords."

The title tag is very important for SEO even today. Learn everything about it:

"If you're clearly indicating who created the content, you're likely aligned with the concepts of E-E-A-T. We strongly encourage adding accurate authorship info" Google 2025

AI is like an “omniscient, eager-to-please intern who sometimes lies to you“:

SEO = "Mind your P*s and Q*s", "Know your A, B and Cs", "Dot your I's" and "Cross your T*s". Offically.

Topical authority is no longer a theory. The Google leak reveals the siteFocusScore, which algorithmically measures your site's niche focus. Stray too far from your core topic (siteRadius), and you dilute your authority. Specialization isn't just a strategy; it's a score.

"Some users might not even notice the MC because it is under a long list of Ads." Google QRG 2014

Publisher Input is Inherently Distrusted: Google’s systems are designed to actively source and test alternatives for the content you provide, from titles to meta descriptions.

Hobo SEO Dashboard V4 is out now. DM me for the offer link!

Earn clicks on pages that link.

Sudden, massive spikes in link acquisition, especially those concentrated around commercial, exact-match anchors, are highly likely to trigger Google's defensive filters.

A link building strategy based on one-off “campaigns” that generate a batch of links on pages that quickly become dated is fundamentally flawed.

An exact-match anchor placed on a completely irrelevant page is not just a wasted link that will be ignored; the documentation suggests it can be actively harmful to a site’s rankings.

If you have enjoyed the recent posts, you will like my new Youtube playlist: The Google Leaks: The Content Warehouse API Leaks / DOJ Vs Google Trial

Replicability Is a Key Factor: A key insight from the leak: the contentEffort score assesses replicability. If content is easy to reproduce, it’s considered low-effort. Original data is your best defence.

I did not expect to write all these but there you go.

New: Hobo Technical SEO 2025

On Youtube The Google Leaks: The Content Warehouse API Leaks / DOJ Vs Google Trial

"Inference Optimisation". Make your site the "canonical source of truth" to feed AI models your facts and create new content from those facts.

The Hobo SEO Quadrilogy. 4 SEO books based on the DOJ trials and content warehouse leak.

The "Sandbox" Theory Is Vindicated: Vindicated by the leak: the "sandbox" is real. A hostage attribute is used "to sandbox fresh spam," confirming new sites are temporarily suppressed.

Topical Authority Is Measured Algorithmically: The Google leak reveals topical authority is now a mathematical score. siteFocusScore measures your niche dedication, while siteRadius penalises content that strays off-topic.

User Clicks Validate Quality: The Google leak confirms the NavBoost system uses goodClicks and badClicks to validate quality. User clicks are the final verdict; if users aren't satisfied, you get demoted.

A Direct Response to AI Spam: Revealed in the leak: Google's contentEffort score is its counterattack on AI spam, using qualitative analysis of depth and originality, not just word count.

Mobile SEO: The data confirms that any content, links, or structured data present on desktop but missing from the mobile version is invisible to Google for ranking.

Local SEO: The leaked data implies success is about building a verifiable entity across four dimensions: Identity, Real-World Prominence, Scale, and Context.

“Signal Coherence” is the Core Strategy: The most effective way to influence the system is to ensure your title, H1, URL, and introductory content all send a consistent, harmonised message about the page’s topic.

Image SEO: An image's final SafeSearch rating isn't just about the pixels; it's a finalP0rnScore that fuses visual analysis with contextual signals, including the search queries it ranks for.

Mobile SEO: Leak documents reveal a violatesMobileInterstitialPolicy flag, a direct true/false demotion signal for pages with intrusive mobile pop-ups.

Local SEO: According to the leak, a signal called siteSiblings counts a brand's related websites to measure its total digital footprint.

Mobile SEO: Leaked data shows a scaled integer (adsDensityInterstitialViolationStrength) measures the severity of an ad violation, not just its existence, allowing for precise penalties.

Title Tag SEO: The documents show a deep analysis of titles, including counting words with and without stopwords (titleHardTokenCountWithoutStopwords), confirming the importance of precise keyword choice.

Published today: ⚡ Hobo Technical SEO 2025 ⚡

Image SEO: The "Licensable" badge you see in search results is directly populated by metadata (imageLicenseInfo) found in the image file (IPTC) or page schema.

E-E-A-T Decoded: Google’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust signals:

Local SEO: The leak shows business hours are stored as structured data, making their accuracy a critical signal of reliability.

🕵️ Topical authority: Stray too far from your core topic (siteRadius), and you dilute your authority. Specialization isn't just a strategy; it's a score.

Mobile SEO: The documents suggest Core Web Vitals are a diagnostic tool; poor scores cause bad user behavior (like pogo-sticking), which powerful systems like NavBoost then penalize heavily.

🕵️ Topical authority is no longer a theory. The Google leak reveals the siteFocusScore, which algorithmically measures your site's niche focus.

The leak confirms an OriginalContentScore for shorter content and that the ranking system can truncate very long documents, meaning important info should be placed early.

Think you can win with generic AI content? Think again. The Google leak reveals OriginalContentScore & contentEffort signals. Google is literally measuring how hard your content is to replicate. If a machine can easily reproduce it, it won't rank.

E-E-A-T Isn't a Single Score: The Google leak shows there's no single E-E-A-T score. Instead, it's an emergent property of dozens of granular signals like contentEffort and siteAuthority.

Introducing: The Definitive Guide to SEO Audits post-Google Leak: