Google Caffeine – Will it Affect Traffic to Your Website?

One only has to mention the possibility of an algorithmic change of some kind and many online marketers run screaming for cover. Avid Internet marketers know only too well what may happen when the great guru Google decides to change its tactics and move the proverbial goalposts to one side. Websites that may have ranked highly prior to that may suddenly move down the list, to the next page or even disappear altogether.

Google, like the other search engines, employs a complex and proprietary system of ranking every single website in the known universe according to its relevance and authority. Volumes have been written to try and break down the reasoning that goes into Google’s methodology and to try to decipher the algorithms used. To this day, no one outside of corporate HQ is 100% certain how the system works but we have a fairly good idea about the fundamentals.

It is no secret that Google wants to ensure that, when it is asked to look for information about a certain keyword through its search engine query box, it returns the most relevant information and a list of the most appropriate websites. Don’t forget, that as Google makes so much money out of its Adwords initiative, it is in their best interests to select the most relevant information to ensure that they earn the most money from those ubiquitous pay-per-click ads.

When Google said recently that they were rolling out what they called “under the hood” revisions to their search technology, many people stood up and took notice. Code-named “Caffeine,” Google simply refers to it as next-generation. “It’s the first step in the process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions…. most users won’t notice a difference in search results.”

It is too early to say whether the proposed changes will have any significant effect on positioning or whether, as some fear, wholesale changes to the science of search engine optimization or content creation may be necessary once again. Early results appear to show a change in the way that different media are represented within a typical search results page. For example, video and news story items may now appear towards the center of the page instead of towards the top.

As Google has become very adept at what they do, it seems unlikely that there are any wholesale changes to come and that “Caffeine” may not make you feel jittery after all.

Is Caffeine an answer to Bing? How strong do you like your search engines?

Adam Toren