Bank in August, Google created sensation when it announced that they were working on a new version of search engine. The project was officially known as Google Caffeine.
When it comes to Google, even a logo change attracts widespread attention from all quarters of media. And since Google Caffeine was a major change, it created quite a stir in the search marketing world as the move was indicative of a paradigm shift.
For those of us who are drawing a blank on what Google Caffeine is, here is a short preview. Google Caffeine is the next generation architecture for Google’s web search that is built to be faster and more accurate, and at the same time provide better and more relevant results.
While all these enhancements are desirable, we as search marketers have a more important question to deal with – “How well will our websites rank in Google’s new avatar? ” Up until yesterday, there was a very simple answer to this question; goto http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and check your rankings as they would appear in Google’s enhanced search index. This however has changed now and it looks like Google is ready to roll out Google caffeine into mainstream search, one data center at a time.
You would now be directed to a splash page if you try to access Google Caffeine via the URL listed above. The splash page reads:
Thank you!
We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.
Based on the success we’ve seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.
So it’s official; Google is ready to give it’s mainstream search a dose of Caffeine. If you have not been checking your rankings on the developer preview of Caffeine, you may be in for some surprises. So brace yourself and get ready. Even if you have been checking on it, you may witness a flux so don’t press the panic button too soon.
The timing of the roll out, which coincides with the start of the holiday season, is however a matter of concern. It is an important time of the year for online retailers as most of their revenues are realized during this period. Any major changes at this point in time will kill them. Google’s Florida Update did something similar a couple of years back, and I sincerely hope that Google is well aware of the likely repercussions and will keep online retailers’ interests in mind.
Update
Matt Cutt has clarified that Google Caffeine will only be rolled out in its entirety after the holiday season. This is what he said:
“I know that webmasters can get anxious around this time of year, so I wanted to reassure site owners that the full Caffeine roll out will happen after the holidays. Caffeine will go live at one data center so that we can continue to collect data and improve the technology, but I don’t expect Caffeine to go live at additional data centers until after the holidays are over. Most searchers wouldn’t immediately notice any changes with Caffeine, but going slowly not only gives us time to collect feedback and improve, but will also minimize the stress on webmasters during the holidays.”
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It’s heard repeatedly that searchers won’t notice the change. Of course, no doubt! The problem is what will happen to the SEO experts and the clients they have?
This will probably have some ugly dance around results. As the results are relevant to a great extent, serious changes means negating the present good results. I hope Google doesn’t do that!