Since this is a modification to how the index works, and not an adjustment of the algorithm itself, some SEOs are dismissing it as irrelevant. That is a mistake. While Google Caffeine does not change the actual ranking factors it does change how quickly new information is found and parsed, which will inevitably impact SERPs. Anything that impacts how things are found for search results impacts SEO strategy and development.

So what exactly does Caffeine mean for SEO? Nobody can say for sure because in typical Google fashion, details are not forthcoming. What Google has said is that Caffeine allows for faster more accurate inclusion of pages and other web content in its index. It appears that Caffeine will be kinder to rich media and the real time web than the previous indexing method. Google has provided a pretty (and cryptic) picture to illustrate the shift; make of it what you will…


The Old Google Index V. Google Caffeine

Knowing that Caffeine indexes a cloud of activity where the previous indexing process was more linear offers some insight into how SEO will have to adjust.

Latency: As a core functionality Caffeine attempts to eliminate latency in the index, meaning it strives to show results in a more timely fashion for any given query. For SEO this means that new content, or changed content, will be recognized much faster than in the past. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. On the positive, it means relevant new content will rank sooner and, in theory, place better than before. On the negative, mistakes or miscalculations in content development, architecture changes and interlinking could be immediately detrimental.

Broader horizons: Blended search is not new, but Caffeine takes it to the next level. In the past, text based content was king, but with Caffeine, rich media, the real-time web and alternate offerings, like PDFs and on-demand webinars, will play a more active role in search placement competition. Gone are the days when text ruled the web; now rich media and other Web 2.0 content types are stepping into the favoured arena.

Letting go of the layers: As the illustration shows Google used to crawl and index the web in hierarchical layers, with some sites getting faster and more focused attention than others. Caffeine has changed all that. Now Google will crawl content as it is added or changed, finding new content at previously unheard of speeds. Keeping content fresh and updating it often will matter now more than ever before. It will be critical to insure that interlinking architecture is clean, with clear paths to your freshest content, in order to thrive in the Caffeine infused web.

Real-time and Social Media as influencers: SEOs have been struggling to understand how the real-time web and social media could impact rankings. There are lots of theories but no proven rules. Caffeine offers some insight into how these two increasingly important online players will alter the index; the integration of real-time results in SERPs was just the beginning. Caffeine will rely heavily on both the real-time web and social media when looking to find the newest, freshest content. This translates into something with the impact potential of a true ranking change, as these signals move in line with tried-and-true backlinks when pointing Google toward content on the web.

Google Caffeine is an inevitable innovation in search technology. As the web becomes more populated search engines must evolve. Web users are impatient and demanding, they want information on the fly and they insist that the information they find be timely and relevant. Google Caffeine will help un-clutter the web by quickly pulling the newest, freshest, most relevant content to the forefront of SERPs. And if nothing else, this means that SEO will have to evolve as well to account for a faster less forgiving index.


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