Google Caffeine

Google just completed a major overhaul of it’s search infrastructure, dubbed ‘Caffeine’ in getting ready for the “next generation of search”. This isn’t just an update, but a complete rewrite of Google’s architecture and how it works. This is the biggest Google search change in 5 years. Google claims that most users won’t notice a difference when it is rolled out, but there is no doubt that many website owners will, especially if their website loses ranking. The new Google search engine will be rolled out after the holidays.

The major changes are a significant increased capacity to crawl and index as well as serving up results faster. The main focus is on speed and of course, relevancy. There will be more documents being indexed faster so there will be more pages to potentially ‘compete’ with in any given search. Speed is even more important now, so graphic heavy and full Flash websites could be at an even bigger disadvantage than they are already. ‘Real-time’ data means fresh, up to date content will help your site even more than it has in the past.

Here is what I believe will help your site do well in Google Caffeine:

• Make sure your site is easily indexed and has a sound information architecture.
• Avoid overly graphic heavy, full Flash and website that take a long time to load.
• Keep content up to date.  Frequent small updates are better than occasional large updates.
• Make sure your site is accurate and optimized.
• Consider integrating Social Media.

If you would like a FREE SEO analysis of your website please contact me at matt@leowebdesign.com