“Caffeine” is the code name for Google’s new set of Search Engine Algorithms that determine the rank of websites for keywords. Contrary to popular belief, this project has been two years in the making and was shifted into beta testing in August of this year.
I played with the sandbox when it first became available, querying the new results for my sites. At that time I found mixed results, with some rankings up and some rankings down.
According to Matt Cutts and Sitaram Iyer, engineers for Google,
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. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.
Google webmaster blog, Aug 10, 2009
The important bit in the quote above is that this is the FIRST STEP. You’ll see that the changes they are wanting to implement are broad and all encompassing; size, speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions – every aspect of search will be affected.
I’ve seen all kinds of interesting “sky is falling” blog posts sprouting up about this update. I’d like to clear the air a little bit.
First of all, Google is always tweaking their algorithms. While the description of “next generation architecture” indicates a total rewrite, based on my observed differences across the board with Caffeine, the changes in rank results are not all that drastic.
From what I’ve heard most people will not see a huge shift in their rankings. Personally most of my sites shifted slightly, and, ultimately, mostly in my favor. They seem to weigh the age of a site a bit less and the current popularity a bit more. Those kinds of changes make perfect sense to me. Another change that makes a lot of sense to me is weighting themes heavier. It seems that the better “themed” a site is, the better it ranks.
I realize that statement is a bit obscure, so let me try explaining it this way. It seems that the more the pages in a site reinforce the theme, through content and linking, the better it does. So the more pages a site has that talk about a particular topic, the better it will rank when those pages are linked together properly.
Now this might be a bit of confabulation on my part, but it makes sense to me and is in line with the premise of silo structures; which recommends that you have 5 supporting pages for a topic on your site, as well specifying the linking structure between these pages so they support this topic. I want to point out that this ranking factor is not new, but it does seem to have acquired more weight in the algorithms.
Second of all, I’d like to try to dispel the myth that Google is somehow the “bad guy”. Like everyone else, Google is in business to make money. Put yourself in their shoes for just a moment. Google make money when people use their search engine. The better the results from a search query match the desires of the person searching, the more often they will use Google, as opposed to going off to try Bing – or perhaps they will simply think to look for more answers online. Even better!
The more often the results are not what the user wants, the less they will think about using Google.
So it is in Google’s best interest to serve up “quality results” as defined by the person doing the browsing… and do so in record time. Enter the new algorithms. Designed to do just this, it makes sense that the web pages which SHOULD fall in ranking would be the less popular, less desirable pages. Some of these pages are perfectly valid, but for what ever reason they are not as popular as others.
If you find yourself with pages in this situation, try adding some multimedia, widgets, blog rolls and the like – anything that would help increase the popularity and “stickiness” of your site. Make sure you check out Google webmaster tools to see if there are any errors there that keep your pages from being ranked better.
The extreme examples of undesirable sites are the spammy, duplicate content, cheap bot created marketing nightmares. With any luck, Google will figure out a way to get these kinds of sites de-indexed entirely. However, the folks who run these kinds of sites are always inventing new ways to trick the search engines. It’s this, as much as anything, that causes Google to have to constantly tweak their algorithms to defeat the latest black hat tricks.
If you have been creating original quality content all along, you have nothing to worry about. Having chosen keywords that are used by your potential clients, your market will find you through the new algorithm just as they did through the old. If this were not the case, Google would be out of business quite quickly.
If you have not been creating quality content all along, and today you find yourself worrying about the new algorithms, I suggest you sign up for The Last Keyword Tool and build yourself a website that will Last. ;- )
Today’s search engine algorithms are based on ideas formulated and possibly submitted for patents a couple of years ago. From my experience as a programmer I can tell you that you don’t rewrite the main infrastructure of a search engine overnight.
So Caffeine is not a direct response to the new release of Bing or any other recent changes on the Search Engine front – it’s just not feasible.
However in my digging through patents to try to find glimpses of what the Google engineers might be using for the basis of their changes for Caffeine, I found some very interesting patents that have been submitted by Yahoo and Microsoft!
I want to share some of those ideas with you in my next blog post so we can explore some ideas of where the internet is going tomorrow.
–Sue & the Theme Zoom Team
Theme Zoom Krakken is an integrated application suite that radically combines Market Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Keyword DNA Creation, Automated Silo Structured Blueprint and Website Development.
For more information about Krakken or to sign up with The Last Keyword Tool Free Trial visit Theme Zoom.
