Are You Ready For Some Caffeine?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Matt Cutts announced in early November that Google Caffeine would be available in one data center after the holidays. In other words, the new joy ride in search will begin in January 2010.

But what exactly is Google Caffeine and how could it possible impact search engine optimziation?

In August, when Google first introduced its beta-tested new search infrastructure, they announced that Google Caffeine would “let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.” Then Google began accepting test drives and feedback, but the site for that process has been taken down and replaced with a thank you message. So are you ready?

I suspect that by the end of January (this month) – maybe even by the end of the first or second week in January – we’ll start seeing some of new results of Google Caffeine. Any idea what that will entail?

I believe the Google Caffeine update will primarily focus on three things:

• A ranking system that heightens the importance of page load speeds
• A more focused relevance on real-time search data
• Stricter spam controls

Why do I say this? Google’s own words – speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness.

Matt Cutts has already discussed the importance of page load times and I think we all see it coming. Page load speed will be taken into greater consideration on future search results. That will probably happen with Google Caffeine. And who can argue that the major search engines have already discovered real-time search? What you see in Google’s SERPs now is just a small taste. I expect that will be improved upon a thousand-fold.

The tricky one will be Google’s attempt to control spam. How the search engine will achieve greater comprehensiveness while de-listing or diminishing the rankings of spam sites is a mystery beyond my imagination, but I can see Google going there. Can’t you?