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.
Keeping Track of Links is an Important Step in Your SEO Strategy
For any online business it is very important to keep track of your inbound links. Many people spend a lot of time and resources creating unique articles and posting them to article sites all over the internet, but do not take the time to track their links to see which ones the search engines are finding. As you create articles it is important to keep a spreadsheet listing each of your articles, where you posted them and which keywords you are focusing on. Some articles will be more appealing to the search engines than others and this is why it is 
important to track which articles are performing on which search engines.
The second thing you will need to do is sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and verify your site. Once your site is verified you will start seeing statistics about your website including inbound links. This will give you a list of which sites Google is tracking and which pages on your website have links pointing to them. This will help you build a strong backlink strategy which will bring your website up in search engine rankings and increase traffic to your site.
Link building is still one of the most important steps in any search engine optimization strategy. It is the main way to get your website listed organically on the top search engines and increase the page rank of pages on your site. The more links you can build the better, but you need to build links in a natural way. You do not want to go and post 100 articles pointing to your website in two days. The search engines will not like this technique and they could actually penalize your site for it. 
Understanding the importance of link building and the proper techniques for it can seem a bit overwhelming, at first. The key is to stay focused and organized. Keep track of the articles that you write and the keywords that you are using. Post articles on popular sites such as Ezinearticles, Hubpages and Squidoo, and post them a few at a time. Do not go out and pay some company to post 1000 articles for you in a few days or a week. This is a sure way to hurt your website.
Outsourcing the writing of your articles is a great place to start with your link building strategy. You can then post the articles yourself in a way that will not cause the search engines to penalize your website. There are many freelancers online that can help you with this task for a reasonable rate. Link building is one of the most important tasks related to building any online business. If done correctly and tracked regularly you are sure to see amazing results in your search engine rankings. If done incorrectly you can really hurt your online business. So, keep a list of your articles and keywords and sign up for Google Webmaster Tools in order to see which sites are working the best for your website and post articles slowly.