Google Caffeine is Launching Soon!

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, November 12, 2009 Comments (11)

As I (and many other top SEO/SEM blogs) have been reporting since mid-August, the big “Google Caffeine” major algorithm update is coming very soon. According to Matt Cutts (Google’s Head of Web Spam Department), the major Google Caffeine update will take place after the holiday season. To read Matt Cutt’s blog post about the Google Caffeine update, please visit the following link:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-caffeine-update/

In case you are interested, Mashable did an analysis of possible changes that might be part of the update back in August here:
http://mashable.com/2009/08/10/google-new-version/

Here is a very interesting video at the last Search Engine Strategies conference show with Matt Cutts about the Google Caffeine update:

Also, here is more talk from around the web about what might happen:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355684,00.asp
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10394059-93.html
http://videos.webpronews.com/2009/11/11/googles-caffeine-live-at-one-data-center/
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/091110-093955
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/25086.asp

So it looks like we are all in for some changes together. From my experience from the last 2 major Google algorithm updates (2003 and 2005/2006) I always recommend to not panic and expect major fluctuations of the Google search engine result/rankings for your website. Since this is new for everyone in the SEO world, I recommend remaining patient and to continue marketing your website and business in a white hat manner and long term you should be just fine.

Of course, I will keep you updated (as everyone will in the SEO industry) with any major updates, roll outs, etc.

Comments (11) Category: Search Engines

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11 Comments

Made Friday, 13 of November , 2009 at 3:09 pm

Seems to me that the only people that should be worried about this at all are those that are employing unscrupulous SEO methods. Those that are following honest methods should be affected little.

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Friday, 13 of November , 2009 at 4:43 pm

Hi Ace,
You are correct, long term if you do all the right things and take a white hat SEO approach then the Google Caffeine should not hurt that much, although we still really don’t know what the exact changes to the algorithm will be…

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Made Sunday, 15 of November , 2009 at 9:57 am

[...] the search engine optimization industry is this week Google’s head of web spam announced the Google algrothim change known as Google caffeine is expected to start to roll out throughout the Google data centers after the holidays. This is big [...]

Comment by Josh

Made Wednesday, 18 of November , 2009 at 11:03 am

Rolling it out AFTER the holiday season? C’mon Google, you don’t want to shake things up right in the midst of holiday shopping like you did with the Florida Update?

Comment by David

Made Wednesday, 18 of November , 2009 at 11:14 am

just in time for xmas potentially going to sink their rankings, but may also clear out much of the affiliate/domainers from the rankings at least in the short term?

Comment by MasterLinker

Made Wednesday, 18 of November , 2009 at 11:27 am

From the interview you referenced and subsequent posts on Matt’s blog, it appears Caffeine is just a re-engineering of the search engine so it processes everything faster and not necessarily a change in the ranking algorithm. (One notable exception is results will be more “time sensitive for certain topics.)

As a result, it doesn’t appear that search rankings should fluctuate much…at least initially. However, I agree with Nick that you should be able to sleep well at night if you employ white hat SEO techniques. Black hatters need to always be on the lookout…whether with the Caffeine update or some future tweak in the ranking algo.

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Wednesday, 18 of November , 2009 at 12:05 pm

Hi Josh,
It is better that they don’t since I can only imagine it could make the holiday season even more challenging this year for eTailers…thanks for the comment!

Hi David,
Let’s hope that the affiliate and domainers get clean up out of the SERPs.

Hi MasterLinker,
True, but lets see what the actual result from this update actually changes things…

Comment by Lorraine Grula

Made Thursday, 19 of November , 2009 at 7:45 pm

Glad my hat is white! Matt Cutts said point blank in the video that he did not think the actual SERPS would change much. He even made it sound like that was their goal, which seemed a tad strange. It will be interesting to see how things are affected but I have always thought that if google’s goal is to serve searchers the best info, then if you are providing the best info in a white hat way, then no matter what changes they make, you will be ok.
As always, thanks Nick for providing reliable and honest info.
Lorraine

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Friday, 20 of November , 2009 at 7:14 am

Hi Lorraine,
Yeah, it will be very interesting to see overall if the SERPs do change or if there will be enhancements to the search results. As always thanks for being such a great loyal reader!

Comment by eMaximize

Made Saturday, 21 of November , 2009 at 4:25 pm

Thanks for sharing .. I dont believe Matt (or the interviewer) touched on what the caffeine update’s main goals are .. which is unfortunate .. agree with MasterLinker in that it seems to be a re-engineering to bring about some efficiencies, and possibly some infrastructure economies .. it would have been nice to know what (soft) enhancements caffeine was addressing..whether noticed or not by the end-user.

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Sunday, 22 of November , 2009 at 11:25 am

Hi eMaximize,
Yeah I agree with you that it would be nice to know what enhancements the Google Caffeine update will entail. We will all find out soon enough.