For those of you who read my posts regularly, you’ll know that I speak a lot about Google. And in particular, I speak a lot about an upcoming algorithm update being made by Google called “Caffeine.” Well, it would appear that this update may be starting to hit. Chris Crum from Web Pro News wrote an article today titled “Has Google Really Begun Changing How It Indexes The Web?” A fair question in which Chris responded that yes “it appears that more people are now seeing the effects from Caffeine out in the wild.” Chris went on to showcase several instances where it does indeed appear that Caffeine is changing things for his clients. We were curious too, so we took a look at about 10 of our current clients, however, and surprisingly did not notice anything unusual either way in regards to their rankings. In fact, most of our clients have remained consistent throughout the past few months. We know that Google announced that Caffeine would hit sometime after the holiday in an effort to keep webmasters sane and not disrupt holiday business. However, it is unclear whether or not this update has happened yet or if it is happening perhaps it is not yet widespread. In any case, we know for sure it is coming..so buckle up…it’s gonna be an interesting ride.
Posts Tagged ‘google caffeine’
It’s Caffeine Time…Or Is It?
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Google Caffeine: What It May Mean To You
Monday, December 7th, 2009Google Caffeine, the “Next Generation” Search Engine from Google is coming soon. With it comes faster speeds for searchers but if you own a website do expect a likely change in your rankings to occur and perhaps a significant change to the way you currently optimize your website. While many of us were able to preview the “overhauled” engine this summer during beta, the test left us with many more questions than answers. Surely we knew that this new Google algorithm would prefer sites that loaded quickly but what about the other factors that have been a staple of website optimization for the past five years, or so? While we have still questions, we believe that there will be some major changes with this update that will once again level the playing field for everyone competing in this space. Below are some thoughts to the way the Google Caffeine update will change the SEO landscape for you:
- Site speed: They call it Google “Caffeine” for a reason. Sites that are fast and load quickly will tend to rank higher than those that don’t.
- More emphasis on on-page factors: Because every yahoo on the planet went and bought their way to the top by purchasing links, this new update will reward the small percent of people that played it straight. This update will favor factors such as good page design, proper meta tags, keyword density, low bounce rates, etc. Pages with broken links, links to bad neighborhoods, and poor page quality will not rank high any longer.
- Quality unique content: This, ultimately, will be the most important ingredient of a page and is another reason why on-page blogging should be at the top of everyone’s weekly to-do-lists.
- Number of social bookmarks: A page eventually will rank on its own merits by the number of social bookmarks it receives. There is going to be an increasing importance on social networking and lets say, how many tweets or del-icio-us votes a certain page gets before it can rank highly on Google.
A final word: It’s only speculation but the word on the street is that Google will finally be placing less importance on linking with the Google Caffeine update. Google is none to happy with the inequities that linking has had on their search engine results. Link building is a multi-billion dollar Industry and has literally changed the optimization Industry overnight. While Google has long since stated their displeasure for link buying, link buyers have generally enjoyed better rankings than those that don’t. ..that is hopefully until now.
Google Caffeine is supposed to launch sometime after the holidays. In the past, Google made updates to their algorithms during the holidays and many webmasters who depend on their rankings were impacted greatly. We will all be curious to see how this update will change the game plan for millions of website owners and search engine marketers alike.
If you witness anything strange with your results, please feel free to call us at 619-270-8155 to discuss. Until then, happy holidays and good luck to all!
