Google Caffeine - What's the Diff?

Google has announced the development of a new search engine algorithm, which has apparently been in the works for some time. The impetus for the new algorithm and indexing processes probably arose from the threat of real time search engines. Google's traditional search results are static and are unresponsive to new material showing up on the Web. Google only shows pages after they've been thoroughly processed and they may not show in the ranking results for months.

Google's expected to fully release the new Caffeine results in January which means your site's rankings may forever change soon.

In an interview, Matt Cutts suggested the algorithm is a complete redesign of the search engine's infrastructure and he hopes it won't have profound changes on search results. If the new system allows faster collection of page changes and linking, then any changes are simply the result of new material being spidered. The old Google just hasn't gotten around to it. If the new system is more than just fast, then it can collect more information and more pages and that means ranking changes will occur.

Caffeine New File Structure

One interview suggests the system will use a new file structure called GFS2 which provides more speed. It may also allow Google to store more information about Web pages (keyword reputation, pagerank, Trustrank, latent semantics, linking history, temporal inbound link changes, etc). Losing inbound links is likely to result in faster losses of rankings! :(

If Google follows through with this, it probably will have profound changes which are only slightly visible now. The added power will allow them to index and rank in ways not possible before. Cutts says the update is to allow the search engine to scale up, index more documents, and process queries faster and that must be a sign that they're going to crawl and process more documents more frequently. Those web sites that publish frequent fresh content, have fresh linking, acquire new links more frequently, and are involved with social media may be able to beat out corporate sites who don't update or create new content or are not involved in social media.

Fresh, Updated Content is a Must Now

Old sites that don't update their content may find their rankings sinking into oblivion.

Sites that have fresh content now have a glimmer of hope that their material could rank top ten on Google. That will be encouragement enough to create a landslide of content development and news along with small sites splurging a little to acquire some Trustrank from authority sites. Before, they wouldn't bother. This might be a good time for start up companies to get exposure on Google, an opportunity that doesn't come around too often.

Matt Cutts on Google Caffeine Update

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Putting an emphasis on freshness means they may have to downplay Trustrank/Authority, and Site Age in order that fresh content from small websites, blogs, and social media sites could be seen in top ten results. For large, stodgy corporations who depend on steady traffic based on their authority/Pagerank, the upcoming wave of real time search demand could be very costly. The real time search craze is just beginning much like the Google craze back in 1998. With millions and millions more pages potentially included in the results, your corporate pages are statistically less likely to show so you may have to buy Google Adwords ads to compensate.

In using the Facesaearch comparison tool, I discovered new previously unseen web sites showing in the results. This wasn't just a jostling of the results, this was two very new entrants. Google rankings are very static so anytime a new web sites show up, they stick out like a sore thumb.

The new sites have low pagerank, minimal inbound links, and they appear to be heavily involved in link exchange sites. Judging by our client sites, recent link acquisitions are a factor. That may indicate an apparent rollback of the Trust factor in the Google algorithm. Temporal factors would appear to be important in the Google Caffeine algorithm.