Inside the Engine Room: What Google's Ranking Signals Really Say About SEO in 2025

If you’ve ever wondered what goes on under Google’s bonnet — how it decides what to show, what to bury, and what to slap on page 43 — well, thanks to the U.S. Department of Justice (and a couple of very chatty engineers), we’ve now got a bloody good idea.

The recent DOJ exhibits are a treasure trove of search engine gossip. Straight from the mouths of Google’s top brains — Pandu Nayak and HJ Kim — we’ve learned how the biggest machine in the world decides whether your content lives or dies.

Spoiler: it’s a mix of old-school logic, AI wizardry, and more user click data than you'd believe.

Let’s break it down.

The ABCs of Ranking: Not As Simple As It Sounds

Turns out, Google’s ranking system is like a sausage factory. You’re better off not knowing how it’s made — but now we do, and it’s grimly fascinating.

At the core of it all are the ABC signals:

A = Anchors (links pointing to a page)

B = Body (words on the page)

C = Clicks (how long users stick around before running for the back button)

These feed into a score called T* (Topicality), which tells Google how relevant your page is to a search. Think of it like a compatibility test between your content and a user’s intent — and you’re being judged.

But don’t get too cocky with clicks — Google avoids “predicting clicks” outright because it's too easy to game. Instead, they’re after genuine engagement. If people click and bolt, Google clocks it. If they click and stay, that’s the good stuff.

Say Hello to Navboost, RankEmbed and Friends

Forget PageRank. That’s the ancient relic in the corner. The real power now sits with newer signals like:

Navboost – Not AI, just a massive table of click data by query and device. Boring but brutal.

RankEmbed – An LLM-driven beast using semantic understanding to rank stuff based on how close queries and documents are in “embedding space.” (No, I don’t understand it either. Think digital vibes.)

Q* – Google’s way of saying: “Is this content actually any good?”

Throw in other toys like eDeepRank, Twiddlers, and hand-crafted scoring systems using sigmoid curves (seriously), and you realise Google’s SERPs aren’t powered by one algorithm — they’re powered by an orchestra of algorithms, scripts, and systems duct-taped together by data science and caffeine.

AI: Not Just Part of SEO. It Is SEO Now.

Let’s not beat around the bush: AI is now baked directly into how Google thinks.

RankEmbed and DeepRank aren’t side experiments — they’re core to the ranking stack. Google’s training models on search logs, click behaviour, and quality raters’ feedback. It’s using fewer data points (sometimes just 30–60 days’ worth), but it’s getting smarter by the second.

If your SEO strategy still involves “sprinkle a few keywords and pray,” then I’ve got bad news: you’re in the past.

What SEOs Need to Do Now (Or Else)

Here’s what actually matters now if you want to rank:

🧠 Optimise for Topicality AND Quality

You need more than keywords — you need relevance, trust, and structure. Google’s not dumb. It knows the difference between expert content and cheap AI spam.

🔍 Stop Chasing Just Clicks

CTR alone won’t save you. Google’s watching what users do after the click. If they come back to the SERP faster than a boomerang, your rankings are toast.

🧩 Use Schema and Structured Data — Properly

Google loves clarity. Help it understand your content, your hierarchy, and your purpose. Treat schema like a translator between your site and the search engine.

🤖 Understand AI Signals and Use Them to Your Advantage

If you’re not adapting content for LLMs — structured headings, direct answers, and natural language — you’re invisible to tools like ChatGPT and AI Overviews.

Final Word: The Game Has Changed

This DOJ data isn’t just a curiosity — it’s a warning shot.

SEO in 2025 isn’t about gaming the system. It’s about understanding it. Google’s evolved from a search engine to a behavioural prediction machine. It’s using AI not just to crawl the web, but to interpret it — and you’d better be giving it something worth interpreting.

If you’re not building for quality, topicality, and user experience, then don’t complain when your page ends up in the digital graveyard.

Want help building content that survives Google's evolving mess of signals, twiddlers and AI overlords? That’s where we come in. No hacks. No guesswork. Just proper SEO that gets results.