--- type: "Article" title: "Google Glue | topical authority content" description: "What Google's Glue system is, what trial testimony and the 2025 remedies opinion say about it, and how to audit a proxy on your site." resource: "https://www.laurelinlabs.com/search-systems/glue" tags: ["google-glue", "topical-authority-content", "glue-navboost-serp-features"] generated: { by: "laurelin-site-build/2026-09-02", at: "2026-09-02T12:00:00+00:00" } status: "stable" stale_after: "2027-03-02T00:00:00+00:00" --- # Glue Glue is a Google system that records how users interact with the whole results page, not only the ten blue links, and feeds that into decisions about search features. It is known from sworn trial testimony, Judge Mehta's 2025 remedies opinion and the 2024 Content Warehouse leak; Google does not document it publicly. Pandu Nayak called it Navboost for all of the other features on the page. For sites, it means engagement with images, video and other features is plausibly recorded, not only clicks on web results. ## What is Glue? Glue is the name Google witnesses used for a system that aggregates query, results page and interaction data across every element of the SERP. In the [18 October 2023 trial session](https://thecapitolforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/101823-USA-v-Google-PM.pdf), Nayak agreed with DOJ counsel that Navboost handles web results and that Glue "does everything else that's on the page that's not web results". Judge Mehta's [2 September 2025 remedies opinion](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1436.0.pdf) calls Glue "essentially a 'super query log'" and treats Navboost data as an important component of it. ## How does Glue work? According to the [remedies opinion](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1436.0.pdf), drawing on Google's expert James Allan, Glue data covers four things: the query (text, language, user location, device type); ranking information, meaning the blue links plus triggered features such as images, maps, Knowledge Panel and People also ask; SERP interaction information such as clicks, hovers and duration on the page; and query interpretation, including spelling correction and salient query terms. Glue is a signal, not the assembler. Nayak told the court Glue works "much later in the stack" than Navboost and that it is "one signal" into the Tangram system, which decides which features appear. The leak contains a [QualityNavboostGlueVoterTokenBitmapMessage](https://google-api-content-warehouse.hexdocs.pm/0.4.0/GoogleApi.ContentWarehouse.V1.Model.QualityNavboostGlueVoterTokenBitmapMessage.html) model that refers to a "Glue model pipeline" and a code path under quality/navboost/speedy_glue, which fits the testimony that Glue sits alongside Navboost. ## What evidence is there that Google uses Glue? The label is **Trial or leak evidence**: sworn testimony, the court's remedies findings and the May 2024 leak. The strongest item is the court's remedy. In the [2025 remedies opinion](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1436.0.pdf), Judge Mehta decided Google should be required to share the data underlying Glue and RankEmbed with qualified competitors at least twice, describing Glue data as "the bread and butter of Google's scale advantage". The same opinion cites a Google exhibit referring to a "Glue Cache (13 months)". The court drew a line worth noting: the remedy covers the underlying interaction data, not "any models or signals built from Glue data". Nothing in the record describes how Glue's output is weighted. [iPullRank's leak analysis](https://ipullrank.com/google-algo-leak) describes Glue as the system "for pulling together universal results using user behavior"; that is an analyst's reading, consistent with the testimony. ## What does Glue mean for your site? If Glue records interaction with images, video, maps and other features, then a site's visibility in those features is not only an eligibility question. The practical reading is that assets which earn engagement inside features (a video that is watched, an image that is clicked through) produce the same kind of interaction record that Navboost produces for web results. The falsifiable part: for queries where Google shows an image or video block, sites with no image or video impressions in Search Console cannot be accumulating that interaction data. Fix eligibility first, then measure feature engagement. - Make key images and videos indexable, described and linked from relevant pages. - Check Search Console's Image and Video search types, not only Web. - Match the asset to the query: a how-to query with a video block needs a video. ## Which Laurelin audit checks test for Glue? Glue itself cannot be observed from a site. The new check, [no image or video impressions for queries that trigger those features](https://www.laurelinlabs.com/audit/topical-content/364-no-image-or-video-impressions-for-queries-that-trigger-those-features), measures a proxy: whether the site is present in the non-web features whose interaction data Glue is described as collecting. Related checks: [video without VideoObject schema](https://www.laurelinlabs.com/audit/topical-content/208-video-without-videoobject-schema) and [video not in a video sitemap](https://www.laurelinlabs.com/audit/topical-content/210-video-not-in-video-sitemap) affect video eligibility; [images not in an image sitemap](https://www.laurelinlabs.com/audit/topical-content/202-images-not-in-image-sitemap) and [images blocked by robots.txt](https://www.laurelinlabs.com/audit/topical-content/204-images-blocked-by-robots-txt) affect image discovery; [missing alt attribute](https://www.laurelinlabs.com/audit/topical-content/195-missing-alt-attribute) affects how images are understood. ## How does Glue relate to Navboost and Tangram? The testimony gives a simple division of labour. [Navboost](https://www.laurelinlabs.com/search-systems/navboost) memorises clicks on web results. Glue extends that memory to everything else on the page. [Tangram](https://www.laurelinlabs.com/search-systems/tangram-tetris), formerly Tetris, uses Glue as one of its inputs to decide which features to show and where. Nayak resisted any suggestion that Glue alone decides: "It's one of the signals, yes." ## What are the key dates for Google Glue? - 2023-10-18: Nayak testifies that Glue covers all non-web features on the results page ([source](https://thecapitolforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/101823-USA-v-Google-PM.pdf)) - 2024-05-28: iPullRank publishes leak analysis naming Glue ([source](https://ipullrank.com/google-algo-leak)) - 2025-09-02: Remedies opinion orders sharing of underlying Glue data with qualified competitors ([source](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1436.0.pdf)) ## FAQ ### Is Glue the same as Navboost? Nayak testified that Glue is another name for Navboost that includes all of the other features on the page. Navboost covers web results; Glue covers everything else. ### Does Google have to share Glue data with competitors? Judge Mehta's September 2025 remedies opinion decided Google should share the underlying Glue interaction data with qualified competitors, but not the models or signals built from it. ### Can I see Glue data in Search Console? No. Search Console's image, video and search appearance reports show impressions and clicks, which is the closest available proxy. Hub: [Topical Content](/topics/topical-content.md)