Google said they will release Caffeine into their main search engine in the new year. While most people won’t notice much of a difference, those who pay close attention will see that there are some significant changes going on behind the SERPs. The question is: How significant will these changes be for SEOs?
The most significant change Caffeine introduces from an SEO’s point of view is the bigger focus on recent results. In addition to Google rolling out their real-time search results, it also looks like timeliness is going to play a larger role in their regular rankings. Sites that stay updated are going to have a better chance to rank. Social media and news sites also fall into this category, and will most likely be given a ranking bonus. This timeliness in Google’s rankings will be more significant for generic keywords, but it’s something that SEOs should still pay attention to once Google roles out the new updates.
One of the more noticeable differences in Caffeine when compared to Google’s current search set-up is speed. Google Caffeine can perform much faster than the current search engine, and while this doesn’t directly affect what SEOs do, it does point to a trend in other changes Google is making. Google seems to be focusing on speed in a lot of different areas, including the rankings in their results. As we move into 2010, it looks like Google will be putting more weight on site speed when ranking sites in their index.
There are going to be some interesting changes to Google in 2010 including Caffeine, real-time results and personalized search. These changes will affect how SEOs do their job, but proper basics are going to remain the same. There’s no reason to go out and change everything you do just because Google is introducing some new things. The best thing to do is wait to see how Google’s changes affect the rankings, and then adapt accordingly.
