Caffeine update & what it means for SEO
Google has today announced some major infrastructure changes to improve indexing capability, speed and accuracy of the search results. Unlike other updates which suddenly appear without warning Google has provided a preview of the new search results at www2.sandbox.google.com. The results are for the US but you can add &gl=uk to the end of the query string to get UK specific results.
From the announcement:
For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.
It’s important to note that this is a rewriting of the core infrastructure and not an algorithm change intended to alter the rankings. Having said that it’s highly likely that some rankings will change as a result of factors such as:
- Google indexing more pages & therefore more links
- The ability to add more factors into the authority algorithm in the future
- Faster re-indexing of pages
This final factor is probably based on the speed of re-spidering old pages rather than indexing new pages – Google is pretty fast at that already. There will probably be some improvements in the few minutes it takes from hitting publish on a new article to that article actually ranking as well as hopefully some better real time PageRank calculations rather than the current reliance on authority and freshness for breaking news stories.
Thanks to the current instability of the search results in Google there seems to be little point testing the new system because you will get different rankings every few hours.
Also extra features such as query deserves freshness have not been layered on to the new system yet so you won’t see any breaking news stories given the same boost as in the normal Google (try searching for some celebrity names to see this in action).
Most people are reporting very similar results although a few brand sites are not doing quite as well as after the brand update and price comparison portals in the finance/insurance industry seem to be doing quite well.
Post category: Google, Search Engine Optimisation Tweet
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
Read the 15 comments below, or add your own!
It’s good to see Google are still ever-developing its efficiency, although it’ll be interesting to see what affect, if any, this will again have on rankings (which I imagine is probably the most important element to discuss coming out of this new announcement).
The race between Google and Facebook for real time/social search supremacy will be awesome to watch. Should we take bets now on who will win?
I’m not seeing any changes in regards to Google Australia (with &gl=au added on). Can you show us some examples of how finance/insurance comparison websites are benfiting from the brand update?
Hi,
In the new preview index when I do a search I’m not seeing the usual page 1 position for my site for the main search term, however I see it when I add &gl=uk to the end of the query string.
The site is a .co.uk extension and hosted in the UK. There are other .co.uk sites which appear in the new preview index with and without adding &gl=uk.
Therefore just wondering why my site only shows for main search term with &gl=uk added while other .co.uk show with and without.
Thanks,
D
So far, I like Caffeine in the sandbox…
Thanks Patrick for the lovely post and for sharing the resourceful info with us.
I’ve noticed on several keywords I watch that flash pages have popped into the top 10 SERPs also other file types seem to be moving up (based on only about 20 searches I ran last night I saw a handful of PDFs and PPTs appear on the first page). I wonder if “comprehensiveness” is going to have a big impact on rankings.
So far, I like this Caffeine update! at first search for one of our keywords, there is show more results from our company!
But still same ranking for seo lebanon.
I am very interested to see how Caffiene’s development will effect search results, however within this I definitely more focused on how it will impact on the rankings within search results.
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This will make a big difference to many bloggers and webmasters from search comparisons that i’ve seen. It will be exciting to see what happens over the next few months though.
I also like the Caffeine in the sandbox, by the way nice information. Thanks for updating.
I prefer my caffeine in coffee
Nice post. I will bookmark it.
If anyone is wondering about Darrell Freeman's question, it's because without the &gl=UK in the URL, you're seeing the personalised results for you
If there is a site – perhaps your own – that you visit regularly, then Google may display it higher in the search results
You should always check using the &gl=uk so that you can be sure where you are ranking independently of Google's personalisation