Part of the reason Google has been able to remain on top of the search world for most of the decade is their relentless dedication to improving the quality of their search results. In the past, Google has kept quiet about updates, leaving most of the SEO/SEM folks to only guess that some system wide change had been made. Often, we search nerds are given confirmation of an algorithm change eventually, as was the case with some of the previous updates, but now for the first time, Google is opening the doors early to their next algorithm shift, called “Caffeine”.
Read on for a link to the sandbox version, and some early thoughts on how it might affect your rankings.
On Monday afternoon, the Google Webmaster Blog announced the debut of “Caffeine”, describing it as the “next-generation architecture for Google’s web search.”
What Has Changed?
Google is publicly saying all the changes are under the hood, in an effort to speed up crawling and indexing. Some power searchers are saying there is more weight placed on fresh results, no doubt a response to the real-time search of Twitter, and I might have to agree. As far as I know, it does mark the first time Google has used a code name that actually sort of describes the update (see: “Vince”, “Florida”, “Big Daddy”, “Fritz”).
Now is probably a good time for an update too, with Yahoo and Microsoft making deals, Twitter’s real-time search getting plenty of press, and Google dropping 4 percentage points in overall market share since January (its lowest total since July of 2007).
So What’s the Strategy?
“Caffeine” will be fully implemented soon enough, so how should it change your SEO strategy?
At Groove Commerce, one of the simplest SEO recommendations we make is to keep your website fresh with new content. That may be done by adding new products, writing blog posts, or updating stale content. In short, don’t let your site expire! When “Caffeine” goes full-time, the effect of keeping your site updated may be even more noticeable.
Take a look here to see how your rankings are affected. If your rankings are up, Hoorah! If they’re down, well, you could always anonymously submit feedback every day.
Comments