What does Google Caffeine Mean for My Website?
Everything in web search is mathematical (which is why SEO companies can get work.) If you understand the mathematics of search you can keep up with Google’s search algorithm changes (estimated to average 2 changes per day). Most companies keep up by hiring SEO experts. Google’s new search scheme, called “Caffeine,” is making a good SEO consultant a better investment.
First, let’s determine what hasn’t changed since Google implemented Caffeine, it’s new search algorithm. Page Rank (PR) is essentially the same. This is good news and a heavy sigh of relief for older domains that have unbeatable page rank due to factors most SEO specialists cannot control. The fundamental approach to search is staying the same, too. Google “crawls” the web on a regular basis, essentially creating a backup of the entire Internet. They apply a series of mathematical equations to your search query that yields the most relevant results possible in the shortest period of time.
The big changes are coming in the frequency at which Google crawls the web and in the equations used to determine which websites are most relevant to search queries.
Indexing the Web, Faster
Rather than indexing pages every other week, Google crawls the web every day. This ensures that the most recent and relevant content is going to be displayed first for a given search. As Google indexes the web faster, they are also looking for the fastest websites. The faster your site loads, the better.
Determining Content Relevance
The days of simple keyword searches yielding the perfect results died in the 90s. When a user searches for something on Google, the results are expected to be exactly what the person was looking for. Google wants to provide the perfect product so that users will come back and search again. To do that, they are placing more weight on the most rapidly generated content: social. In the previous indexing structure, social content was not indexed but displayed as news. Now, all content on the web is essentially indexed in real time. This means a company’s content is more important than ever, and frequent content updating is crucial to online success. The quality of the content will be weighted just like the quality of links has been weighted previously.
The key to understanding SEO long-term is anticipating the big players’ next move. And that is exactly what Google is doing with its search. Instead of focusing on what you ask for, Google is interested in predicting what you meant to ask for. As Google anticipates end-users next move and puts their needs first, search marketers must do the same.
For Website Owners
What does this mean for your business? Simply put, you need to understand where search is going. Update your site often with great content. Invest in good content. Beautiful websites aren’t the answer anymore. Your site has to be fast, relevant and creative. Ultimately the content you create should be interactive, because the future of the web is no longer search, but social. So the future of search is social, too. Semantic. Intuitive. A lot to chew on. If you get lost in your SEO battle and need help, get it from a professional.
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