Previous tests within the SEO community, including SIA, have found that Google Sheets do have some valuable link power and are great easy Tier1 links when not abused.
However, there have been tons of software and training put out that talk about how to create these “Google Stacks”, and Google has since stopped allowing for a ‘Public’ link in its shared document options. We check if Google Sheets still have ranking value, despite the non-public link.
Transcription Below
This is sheets. Same thing: anyone can view, Publish to the Web. Same set up. You see, 1, 2, 3, 4 and a little bit of tickle but it dropped it. This one bounced around a little bit more but it still did the same thing as the rest of them. It dropped the page. It's not as bad as the other ones were but this might be a good ~. I think this one is 6, drop that one so this is neither win nor lose loss. They're not penalizing sheets like they did with the other ones.
I would think if the intent was to be a penalty it would have knocked out the pages completely which didn't happen but maybe it's a good indicator that Google is saying, "Hey, don't do this. We don't want you to do this. We're not going to penalize you right now.
We're not going to nuker you out of the planet but do not do the same. We're tired of you wasting our resources." that could be the message that's being sent right there as an indicator that those links could actually turn into something that Google says, "We're not penalizing our platform. We'll still rank your Google Doc but we're going to torch your website that's linked to it." So, just don't do that anymore. That maybe what's coming as those changes are progressing through.
That's it.
DORI: Okay! That was quite a few tests, sounds awesome.
CLINT: If you have any questions on those James is in the Slack group, I'm there, Dori's there so bring those questions to the Slack. That's a feature function. You get access to us, you get access to dori, you get access to testers and you get access to each other so you need to be taking advantage of that Slack if you're not.
DORI: Seems like there's more going on in the Skype group. Okay, everyone! We will see you next month. Have a good month and we'll see you in Slack and on Skype.