Seo Case Study - Chrome Bookmarks

cameltoe · Apr 24, 2015

well this would be very interesting.
I've also bookmarked it with chromium.

However, I do seem to recall that there was a guy who asked Matt Cutts whether they use Google Chrome usage data in their organic algorithm. Apparently the answer was no.
So this is a good test.

souleclipse · Apr 24, 2015

nice case study... bookmarked!

tb303 · Apr 24, 2015

rhapso said:
Thats a https request not http, add tcp.port == 443 to the Wireshark filter to see that

well yes obviously i am looking at http(s)

what i meant was more details on the requests you are seeing.

for instance you refer to the https requests being sent when you type in the address bar. Thats the autocomplete doing its thing...

Code:

https://www.google.co.uk/complete/search?client=chrome-omni&gs_ri=chrome-ext&xssi=t&q=blackhat....etc....

which if you look at the decrypted response is some JSON with suggestions...

Code:

["blackhat",    ["blackhat movie",
    "blackhat trailer",
    "blackhat review",
    "blackhat film",
    "blackhatworld",
    "blackhat 2015",
    "blackhat forum",
    "blackhat movie cast",
    "blackhat release date",
    "blackhat film review",
    "blackhat seo",
    "blackhat uk release date",
    "blackhat watch online",
<snip> etc.. etc...

also you get the requests to the following URL when you open a new tab

Code:

https://www.google.co.uk/_/chrome/newtab/manifest?espv=2&ie=UTF-8

whos decoded response is

Code:

CACHE MANIFESTNETWORK: *
CACHE:
/images/srpr/logo11w.png
/images/srpr/chrome_ntp_white_logo2.png
//ssl.gstatic.com/chrome/components/doodle-notifier-01.html
/xjs/_/js/k=xjs.ntp.en_US.pTu-WLAsprM.O/m=jsa,ntp,d,csi/rt=j/d=1/t=zcms/rs=ACT90oEecaPwxsrtYIlgP6gnhiJQMPLerQ
#90fqwr

there's many more as well but Im not seeing anything when you bookmark a page.

As your using wireshark im wondering are you just seeing coincidental network traffic from the system.
If its http(s) then try your same tests using Fiddler as its much easier to get the decryption working.

Im not saying chrome doesnt store all this information and send it in bulk at some point later (jury's still out on this i think until someone runs a capture for over a month anyway)
But im pretty sure its not doing it when you bookmark something.

That said I would love to be proved wrong!
*if* chrome is sending bookmark data over https to google then we would probably not care about the response,
So a trivial <script> tag on you webpage would tell google your visitor just bookmarked it. Much like the old viewscripts.
I would say that in itself is why google isnt using bookmark data - too easy to game!

smartboyhere · Apr 24, 2015

Bookmarked, Let us see the result!

Rank 360 · Apr 24, 2015

Interesting. lets see

yourdady · Apr 24, 2015

bookmarked looking for result thanks

AntiHacker · Apr 24, 2015

bookmarked (I think)

netcelal · Apr 24, 2015

Bookmarked...

..

FatBee · Apr 24, 2015

well interesting. The overall idea is awesome and maybe its true. Bookmarked!

cameltoe · Apr 24, 2015

I've just read a 2 year old article that claims google is using chrome/chromium user data.
https://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/ex-google-employee-brighton-seo

I've checked for requests made with wireshark myself, but couldn't find anything.
Then I realized that I wasn't logged into the browser. Look at this:

The data syncs pretty quickly.
So now all this would make a lot of sense. With people logged in, you can reliably store and process bookmarks.
Looking at chrome settings in that google account, you can see that it also stores passwords, open tabs, the history etc.

So potentially, they could use that other data too.

tb303 said:
*if* chrome is sending bookmark data over https to google then we would probably not care about the response,
So a trivial <script> tag on you webpage would tell google your visitor just bookmarked it. Much like the old viewscripts.
I would say that in itself is why google isnt using bookmark data - too easy to game!

So a simple script as tb303 describes most likely wouldn't work. You don't have the user authenticated.
Perhaps it can be gamed with logged in users, similar to how likes etc. could be faked. But it's not simple.

louise5001 · Apr 24, 2015

Modern spam techniques are always welcome, looking forward to the results.

rhapso · Apr 25, 2015

tb303 said:
well yes obviously i am looking at http(s)

what i meant was more details on the requests you are seeing.

for instance you refer to the https requests being sent when you type in the address bar. Thats the autocomplete doing its thing...

Code:

https://www.google.co.uk/complete/search?client=chrome-omni&gs_ri=chrome-ext&xssi=t&q=blackhat....etc....

which if you look at the decrypted response is some JSON with suggestions...

Code:

["blackhat", ["blackhat movie", "blackhat trailer", "blackhat review", "blackhat film", "blackhatworld", "blackhat 2015", "blackhat forum", "blackhat movie cast", "blackhat release date", "blackhat film review", "blackhat seo", "blackhat uk release date", "blackhat watch online", <snip> etc.. etc...

also you get the requests to the following URL when you open a new tab

Code:

https://www.google.co.uk/_/chrome/newtab/manifest?espv=2&ie=UTF-8

whos decoded response is

Code:

CACHE MANIFESTNETWORK: * CACHE: /images/srpr/logo11w.png /images/srpr/chrome_ntp_white_logo2.png //ssl.gstatic.com/chrome/components/doodle-notifier-01.html /xjs/_/js/k=xjs.ntp.en_US.pTu-WLAsprM.O/m=jsa,ntp,d,csi/rt=j/d=1/t=zcms/rs=ACT90oEecaPwxsrtYIlgP6gnhiJQMPLerQ #90fqwr

there's many more as well but Im not seeing anything when you bookmark a page.

As your using wireshark im wondering are you just seeing coincidental network traffic from the system.
If its http(s) then try your same tests using Fiddler as its much easier to get the decryption working.

Im not saying chrome doesnt store all this information and send it in bulk at some point later (jury's still out on this i think until someone runs a capture for over a month anyway)
But im pretty sure its not doing it when you bookmark something.

That said I would love to be proved wrong!
*if* chrome is sending bookmark data over https to google then we would probably not care about the response,
So a trivial <script> tag on you webpage would tell google your visitor just bookmarked it. Much like the old viewscripts.
I would say that in itself is why google isnt using bookmark data - too easy to game!

I found that Chrome dont send his misterious requests when you are behind a proxy and Fiddler is used as a reverse proxy, thats why you cant see what i'm talking about with fiddler.

this is a screenshot of Packets captured with wirshark that Chrome send when you bookmark.

domainmadness · Apr 25, 2015

Bookmarked as well, don't forget to report results if any.

rhapso · Apr 25, 2015

domainmadness said:
Bookmarked as well, don't forget to report results if any.

I monitor the serps every day, but I dont think that there will be any impact before 10 or 15 days

Azzurro · Apr 26, 2015

bookmarked! curious about results

laur.laurix · Apr 26, 2015

Interesting i`m also using wireshark to see how G products communicate with G base. And yes I think bookmarks will influence rankings. PM maybe we can exchange some ideas.

rhapso said:
with Wireshark, i found that whenever i bookmark a website, chrome sends a https request to an google ip. you can test it if you want

If i was google, that will be a very strong metric to use on my algo, a website that is bookmarked by thousands of people is a website that deserves to be well positioned, you dont think so ?

SEOZone Agency · Apr 26, 2015

Strange one but I can see your logic behind it.. looking forward to seeing how this unravels!

Buzzika · Apr 26, 2015

Bookmarked.
Keep us updated. Thanks to everyone else who bookmarked.

drei29 · Apr 26, 2015

Bookmarked! Looking forward on the how will be the outcome of this case study.

Miraculous Atom · Apr 26, 2015

Good job OP. I always interested in case study. Bookmarked!

Seo Case Study - Chrome Bookmarks

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