How will Google Caffeine Affect Your Site(s?)

July 6th, 2010 | 22 comments

Recently there has been alot of talk about something called “Google Caffine.” I had planned on writing a blog post explaining what it is and how it will affect you, but my friend Jennifer (PotPieGirl) beat me to the punch. And although I do not believe Google Caffeine is going to make or break anyone, I do think it’s important for you to at least understand what it is and how it may very well affect your sites.

So, instead of explaining something that has already been explained in details, I’ll just send you over to her blog to read the long, technical explanation and I’ll give you a very quick explanation for “dummies” like myself.

So here’s Jennifer’s very detailed and thorough explanation “Google Caffeine – What it Means To YOU”

And here is my explanation for “Dummies” like myself.

Google Caffeine is what Google has named the new index for their search engine. Basically, pages will be indexed MUCH quicker once Caffeine is fully implemented. That is a good thing for those of us who create alot of content. I remember years ago waiting a few MONTHS was typical for a site to be indexed. I remember very clearly my Germany Travel site took almost 3 months to be indexed by Google and I was building links to it daily. These days even before Caffeine it’s not uncommon to get a site indexed within a few hours, but apparently Caffeine will be even faster! So that’s cool, right?

But you also have to think about how the search results will be affected by this, specifically trendy topics.

I believe Google Caffeine is a result of Google’s desire to show news and social media pages more frequently whenever possible, because news, blogs and social media pages tend to have the most updated and current content.

Let’s say you have a page that holds a top ranking for “hair regrowth.” Now let’s say some miracle drug comes out that regrows hair 100%. The second that product hits the media, news sites and social media is going to BLOW UP with fresh content about it. Before Caffeine Google wouldn’t even know about these news, blogs and social media stories so your page would get alot of attention until that time. But with Caffeine Google will know about them almost instantly. Now, which do you think Google wants to show in those top positions? Your old, static page or all of those news and social media pages? I’m betting on the latter.

So to put it in layman’s terms, from what I understand, Google Caffeine isn’t going to affect the average Webmaster until there is a hot trend in your niche or if your niche is extremely active (a great deal of social media and/or news activity.)

As always, just keep doing what you know you need to be doing (helping people, building links etc.) and in most cases I believe you’ll be just fine.

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22 comments

Chuck (85 comments.)
6th July, 2010 at 8:28 pm

Even though it was long before Caffeine, I remember an example of this. As a voiceover talent, I obviously try to rank highly for relevant keyphrases. A couple years ago, when Don LaFontaine died…he was the one “voice guy” most people had ever heard of (owing to the GEICO commercials and a couple features on 60 Minutes and 20/20, I think)…MANY of my rankings disappeared for a month or two because reports of his death completely dominated the topic. Of course, eventually, everything returned to normal.

My suspicion is that we’ll see the impact most in areas like those who register “michael jackson death” and the like within minutes of the event…and try to get ranked and capitalize on news stories. They’ll probably just be blown out of the water by news and social items now. And that seems like a good thing.
Rika Susan's Juicing For Weight Loss (23 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 2:13 pm

Thanks, Josh. It will be interesting to see how the story around Google Caffeine develops. If we have lots of fresh content, it should boost our traffic over time.
Kamran Chowdhury (4 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 2:15 pm

Recently, I have noticed that indexing is much faster. For one article, I made a search in Google a couple of minutes after posting and it was there already.
SEO Woodstock GA
7th July, 2010 at 2:26 pm

Hey Josh, with the faster indexing by Google, do you feel its no longer necessary to go out to social bookmarking sites, bookmark the post, then ping the RSS feed of the bookmarks? This and other techniques have helped to get indexed faster in the past.
Lazy Domaining
7th July, 2010 at 2:27 pm

Already Google has the blog search to show the blogs. I doubt if Google would replace all the static pages with the news & blogs. Would be interesting to watch out how Google plays it.
Linda (20 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 2:33 pm

mmmm…..I guess we will have to up the ante when news breaks out about our blogs’ topic, and put in plenty of posts about the newsworthy item so we at least stand a chance of keeping our ranking.
Ben Yost (7 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 2:42 pm

Good condensed post on the subject, Josh!

I have watched a few sites, that are in a niches when news breaks- like the oil crises, the economy ect.. and you can actually watch the sites jump up to better page positions- if they are all over providing lots of releveant content.

Question is will they stay there long term or go back to where they were?
Rapid Affiliate Success
7th July, 2010 at 3:57 pm

This is good news for bloggers and frequent updaters. Fresh content should be like fresh coffee … new every morning.

I am also hearing that Google intend to take on Facebook and launch their own Social Network as well. This is because FB is the most visited site in the world and also because the data on FB is kept inside the site.
Steve (14 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 4:14 pm

hi Josh,
I think I have seen that with Caffeine, more stuff is found and indexed faster… a LOT more stuff and a LOT faster.
That said, I didn’t think it would have much effect on most rankings, but I agree with your insight that some previously rock-solid static sites may be blown out of the water when new things break by the fresh-content upstarts! I like that!
Should be interesting to see if this turns out to be the case.
Steve
Leonard Aberts (4 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 4:15 pm

It will be interesting to see how this will effect lower rank keywords and longtail keywords. I wonder if it will cause any changes in PPC and adwords as far as pricing and such as if things are indexed faster, some keywords might spike.

I had heard that Facebook is going to implement an email system that will make gmail look puny. Just remember that a few years ago Yahoo was the top dog and no one heard of Google……
Paul Hooper
7th July, 2010 at 5:04 pm

Hi Josh,

Interesting stuff. My guess is that if you have a well established site in a certain niche, and some new item explodes on the scene, it might affect it for a while, but i would think things would settle down again once the ‘frenzy’ is over. I don’t think Google would want to penalize a highly relevant site that they had previously awarded a top ranking to when something new crashes onto the scene…i hope they wouldn’t anyway

Thanks for throwing some light on this.

Cheers,
Paul
Rieke
7th July, 2010 at 5:12 pm

Hi Josh,

in answer to your post I found an interesting article here which may give some further aspect on the Google Caffeine

http://tinyurl.com/caffeine-by-google

When I understood it well, it means that you have to take in consideration Amazon and ebay because as site authorities Google Caffeine will give them a lot more weight.
steven sherin (1 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 5:24 pm

Hi Josh, I have definitely seen some changes in my sites rankings. Some disappeared and came back, some dropped.

But overall most of my sites have actually done better.

My koi site for example has been sitting way back there for ages. It’s a good site with a lot of unique content. Frustrating!

But over the past few days it has moved up over 30 pages and is now on page 2.

I think the key here is to remember that Google will reward those who provide fresh content.

The set it and forget it days are over. You wont be able to rank and just glory in it you will have to update your sites content from time to time, even in the lower competition niches.At least that’s my take on it anyway.

Steve
Susan Greene (5 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 8:41 pm

Regardless of Google Caffeine, the focus should be on creating quality content, not just quantity. Companies that load up their sites with uninteresting or poorly written copy will find they may temporarily gain search engine ranking and traffic, but they will lose when it comes to converting that traffic into paying customers.
Joe Kans (1 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 9:45 pm

Hi Josh,

I think that time has come for internet marketers to start thinking in a different way…
More dynamic attitude and more daily effort to put in order to get results!

Thanks for your precious insights as always.

Joe Kans
dave (1 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 10:25 pm

lately i have noticed that my longer content over 500 words will outrank my lower word (250-375) word content. I think google put the marketers who write 250-350 word articles squarely in their sites
Leigh (2 comments.)
7th July, 2010 at 11:21 pm

I’m finding that my product sites are bouncing around all over the place and are now usually being beaten by Amazon and other major online retailers.

My theory is that new product pages are getting released in those niches and consequently, because they are fresher content, they are getting the ranking over my little 0 page rank site.

It’s only a theory so far but I’ve been watching the top rankings and every time I do a search for certain niche products I have a site in there are different results in there every time. Even after an hour or so.

Time to adapt again I think.
Paul (2 comments.)
8th July, 2010 at 12:30 am

Thanks, Josh.
That’s interesting. I get the impression then, that Caffeine, measuring the ongoing popularity of a site, could be very significant. Maybe more so than the other basic ranking points – as we understand them.

Traditional off-page SEO seeks to set up a page to ‘appear’ popular (with backlinks etc.). Until now I have never heard that actual hits (as a measure of popularity) is part of G’s ranking criteria.

I think that could change things considerably! It might be like going to a library and having to select from the books that have just been returned before any others. The ‘best’ or ‘authoritative’ books get left back on a distant shelf, in favour of the ‘popular’ ones which are the ones everybody sees.

It could take a fair while for things to ‘settle’ back again because as long as the SERPS show the ‘popular’ sites, that’s effectively all that people will click on. They could be ‘popular’ for a while!

And then I might have misunderstood entirely!
Allen
8th July, 2010 at 9:06 am

Recently read that Google will be placing more importance on new content (ie. as you say with news and social media sites). And agree with the idea that old content updated is probably – equally if not more – valuable than just new news.

I’m off to the PotPieGirl … thanks for explaining in laymans terms!
Matt Kettlewell (1 comments.)
9th July, 2010 at 4:33 pm

I believe this is the trend, fresh relevant content is what Google is looking for. And with Google looking at social media feeds this becomes a good strategy to help drive people to your site.
John Burnside (4 comments.)
11th July, 2010 at 6:51 pm

Thanks for the post about google caffeine. Hadn´t heard about it before i read this blog. Sounds good for the general internet marketer as we won´t have to wait around so long for results.
Gary Hicks (4 comments.)
13th July, 2010 at 9:32 am

I think your ‘dummy’ summary is probably right, Josh. In general terms, faster indexing will be a good thing for most of us. But in the event of a red hot news item breaking, OK, it may knock a few sites of their perch for a while but as some of your previous comments have said, things will most probably settle down after a while. Don’t forget, big news items rarely hold the public’s attention for more than a month or so, and, of course, once people lose interest in the hard news angles, so will Google,