Have Some Google Caffeine

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Google is giving a sneak preview of its future search engine. That’s nice. Here’s how they explain what they’ve done:

For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.

I’m with Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim. In an attempt to get more social and produce more current results, Google has turned the knob way up on social media. I conducted searches for several names, including my own, and in most cases I saw social media profiles rise to the top of the search engine results. The one big glaring exception was my own, Nick Stamoulis. I think I know why.

“Caffeine“, as it is called, is designed to return results that are relevant and more recent. But there are some issues. I believe that the issue Andy Beal points out with regard to his own name is caused by heavy use of social media. A search for Nick Stamoulis returns www.nickstamoulis.com to the top of the search results. But Twitter is way down in the results, like page 4. and then it’s on the subdomain m.twitter.com, the mobile version of Twitter. My LinkedIn profile, however, sits at No. 2.

My suspicion is that social media profiles that get a lot of use rise higher in the SERPs. Of course, that’s not news, but Andy Beal’s Twitter stream showing up at the top of a SERP for his name and mine falling further down can be accounted for by how often we use those accounts. Andy Twitters several times throughout the day, every day. But I only send out a couple or a few more each day. I’m not a heavy Twitter user. But I do use LinkedIn quite often.

So is there a fix for this? I think Andy Beal has the right idea. Maybe instead of turning up the social media volume a lot, Google “Caffeine” should just turn up a notch or two. Instead of using hot water in the coffee, use lukewarm. If they can tweak it just a little for the social media power users so that their social media profiles don’t end up on top, especially if they websites of their own, then that would be the perfect solution. What do you think?