What is Google Caffeine?

Whether it was a move in response to MSN’s new search engine Bing, or just the next step in Google’s evolution, Google is hoping to make big changes with Google Caffeine. Being called “the next generation of search”, Google Caffeine claims to be faster, more accurate and more comprehensive than the current Google search. They have actually opened up the test version to some of their toughest critics, the users, for review and feedback. This is a great way for Google to find out about issues and gain free advice on suggestions for their new technology.

While Google is claiming that the average Google Caffeine users may not see any major changes in the search engine, web developers and power searches should notice some upgrades. Google has issued an open invitation to its users and they can see a preview of Google’s new infrastructure by going to http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and trying searches there. Google is looking for feedback on the differences that users see with Google Caffeine. Are users seeing more real time search results with the new system? Some of the early feedback is indicating that this is true which may even place more relevance on social media marketing than ever before.

It is important for SEO specialists to understand that Google makes changes to its algorithm all the time without to much publicity, but does tend to announce major changes. Therefore, Google Caffeine, while bringing better service to its users may have significant impacts on your search engine results and rankings. These changes could be for the better or for the worse, only time will really be able to reveal this answer. It is very important for companies to start testing their keyword searches with the test version of Google Caffeine and comparing the results to the current Google search.

While, one of Google’s goals is to index more and more information on the internet, this could negatively affect your listings. With more and more information being indexed, your pages may have much more competition, and therefore, you may fall back or off of some Google searches. However, if you feel that a number of your url’s are not being indexed with the current functionality, Google Caffeine could make a positive impact to your search results. Either way, you can expect to see some changes to your listings once Google Caffeine is officially released.

While we really have no idea how these changes will specifically affect our future business, it is important for companies to stay informed and be open to some strategic changes in the way they are currently doing business. If Google Caffeine does have some negative impacts on your listings you may be able to compensate for this through more focused pay per click campaigns. For example, you may want to make your ads more specific based on geographic location. By making this change you may even find that your advertising dollars are being better spent. Bottom line, change is the one constant in the life of Google, so it is much more productive to embrace the change than to fight it. Hopefully, Google Caffeine will help us as searchers and internet business owners.