Google Caffeine’s obsession with speed will bring tremendous opportunities for marketers in 2010 – but you’d better get moving now.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am mildly obsessed with coffee. I savor it, gulp it, glory in it. But really, it is all about the caffeine. Caffeine makes me feel alive. Caffeine makes me engaged. Caffeine makes my heart purr along at 600 beats per minute. Caffeine is essential. Google shares my love for the caffeinated lifestyle. They are obsessed with speed. They want their servers chugging along like they’ve spent the afternoon with 400 of their favorite baristas. Google is ready to rock Caffeine, their new internal search architecture. Google Caffeine is ready to roll out after the holidays.
What Does Google Caffeine Mean to Marketers?
Fundamentally, it doesn’t change your current search positions a lot. The essential algorithm that Google uses to determine which sites are relevant for particular terms isn’t really changing that much in the near term (but look out…big changes are coming…more on that before Christmas). But there are nuances that are becoming evident:
1. Indexing - Caffeine is all about indexing speed for Google. How many more pages can Google add to its index and how quickly? Caffeine represents a significant change in Google’s housekeeping. This is good for Google. They are speeding up the indexing because the web is exploding in its growth. (See my Here Comes The Flood for more info on the whats, whys, and wheres of the explosions). Google needs to get faster so that it can keep up with the deluge of new information and links. The takeaway for marketers is that you can expect to see your newer pages show up in the index (but not necessarily well ranked) sooner. Speed of indexation is good, but a bigger index means that you have even MORE work to do to keep yourself visible. You will likely have to do less work to become seen by Google, but more work to be visible to searchers.
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