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Google “Caffeine” Goes Completely Live

June 9, 2010 By admin

We reported a few weeks ago on Google’s big infrastructure change known as “Caffeine” and what it meant for SEOs and webmasters. Caffeine has been in the works for quite a while with few details being released to the public in August for feedback purposes. A pilot version was launched last November.

Caffeine is a change in the index, or infrastructure of Google. Unlike the “Mayday” update, it’s not changing the algorithm in any way…it’s simply changing how sites are indexed on their servers. Since content on the web is blossoming and getting more complex, Google felt it needed its index to evolve with it so it could return the most relevant, up-to-date results to its searchers.

In a nutshell, the following are the main things you need to know about Caffeine:

  • It’s NOT a ranking change. You shouldn’t see any major ranking changes from this
  • It DOES change how Google indexes pages – speed, scalability and how deep they can get into a site
  • It should now deliver fresher results
  • Search results should go deeper over time

Before, the old index consisted of several layers, each of which was updated at different times and frequencies. When refreshing a layer, Google would have to analyze the entire web which caused a delay between when new content was discovered and when it was made available to a searcher.

With Caffeine, Google will now analyze the Internet in small portions and continuously update the search index on a global basis. As the spider finds new pages or information, it can automatically be added to the index, making it available immediately.

Caffeine can index pages on an enormous scale – its server takes up over 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database. It adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes a day. To compare, you would need 625,000 of the largest I-pods to store that much information.

As with anything, there is some controversy as to the effects of this. Some comments on different forums discussing the new infrastructure claim Google is making a smart move, staying ahead of the bell curve when it comes to the advancement of websites.

However, others worry about spam and how this could be a great boon to spammers. Since Google is striving to post the most current results, spammers could take advantage of this by copying other sites’ content. Some have even said this could lead to Google’s demise and only gave them 6 months!!

Either way, we will stay on top of how Caffeine is working and its effect on websites and web searchers. If it is a bad move on Google’s part, we will certainly witness a decline in their search volume.

In the mean time, see Google’s spam chief at the recent SMX Advanced conference explaining Caffeine in this video below.

Filed Under: Forum Watch, SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , ,

“Mayday” Update Confirmed by Google

May 28, 2010 By admin

A hot topic of late in the SEO forums centers on what’s been dubbed Google’s “Mayday” update…we provided an explanation here at SEOe on what webmasters were experiencing with their long-tail keyword (phrases over 3 words) rankings.

Now Google has confirmed the “Mayday” update with Matt Cutts saying at Google I/O that “this is an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries. It went through vigorous testing and isn’t going to be rolled back.”

Each year, Google changes its algorithm anywhere from 350 to 500 times (2009) which is why many veteran SEOs recommend you not get too focused on specific ranking factors, which puts you at the mercy of these types of tweaks.

Every so often though, Google makes a big enough change in their algorithm that it gets noticed by people who usually don’t spend much time thinking about it.

In regard to the Mayday change, Vanessa Fox at Search Engine Land prodded Cutts for more on the specifics of their change. He stated that it was a rankings change, not a crawling or indexing one. This seems to imply that sites seeing less traffic are still getting their pages indexed but are not ranking as high as they were before. Google’s changes seem to only be affecting “long-tail” traffic which generally comes from longer searches that few people do. But when you add them all up, it could be a lot.

The algorithm change also seems to be affecting very large sites with “item” pages, like an ecommerce site. These pages generally don’t have many links to them and buried deep within a site. They also may not have substantial amounts of unique content on them.

These observations and admissions regarding the Mayday update confirm one thing for sure – it’s certainly beneficial to create unique product descriptions for items you sell on your site (B2C companies). Simply using a manufacturer’s generic description could be causing you to lose rankings for your product pages.

What can I do if I have pages affected by the Mayday update?

Creating compelling content and attracting links to these pages can be difficult. The best we can suggest is to isolate the pages/keyword phrases you’re experiencing a drop in. Do a search using those phrases and see what sites are ranking on page 1 and see what they do. Don’t copy them verbatim but get an idea of what they may be doing that you’re not, or vice versa.

Filed Under: Forum Watch, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , ,

5 Ways you can optimize your ‘Tweets’ for Search

May 19, 2010 By admin

It’s become clear from different blog posts and forum discussions that simple ‘tweets’ on Twitter can give your website the initial indexing and ranking boost it needs in the search engines.

We spoke the other day about whether Twitter is a good tool for getting your site indexed and ranked. While it can provide you with a good boost initially, you have to sustain that energy by following up with a good crawlable site that includes compelling, keyword-rich content.

So how can I optimize my ‘tweets’ for search that can translate into a good boost for my search engine rankings?

Continue reading for 5 steps you can use to optimize your ‘tweets’ for search.

1. Front Load Tweets

Treat your Twitter post like it’s a Meta description tag. You only have 140 characters to make your splash so be sure you put the most important part of your ‘tweet’ at the beginning.

2. Anchor Text

Be sure and get your anchor text into the URL you’re linking to from your ‘tweet.’ If you’re using a shortening service like bit.ly or j.mp (uri’s), use the custom naming options to get your anchor text in there. Use hyphens to separate words but don’t overdo it!

3. Custom Named Uri’s

When using a shortening service like bit.ly, you can take the first three words of your page’s title and use them as a custom uri, if appropriate. Start your ‘tweet’ with the URI and lead into the rest of the title and/or sentence, like a precursor. You can also include the URI in the middle or end of a sentence – it all depends on the document title.

4. Retweets

You can also recycle old ‘tweets’ that are still relevant. Front load retweets and unlike original ‘tweets,’ place credit at the end rather than the beginning. Other than that, treat retweets like you would a regular ‘tweet.’

5. Retweet Scrubbing

Go through your ‘tweets’ every so often and fix any case issues or typos you may find. You can even edit the title if the ‘tweet’s’ originator changed the title based on the destination document. This change fragments the meaning of a ‘tweet’ in some ways. Twitter’s new retweet feature prevents this from happening but doesn’t allow scrubbing.

These are just a handful of tips to get you started on harnessing Twitter to boost your site’s indexing and ranking potential. You would be surprised at what you can do in 140 characters or less!

Filed Under: Forum Watch, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Google’s New Search Engine Index – Caffeine

May 7, 2010 By admin

Google Caffeine was announced several months ago but it was uncertain how and when it would be implemented…our post from Monday speculates that it may be in effect now since webmasters and SEOs have been noticing some changes regarding long-tail keywords.

So what is Google Caffeine?

Caffeine was formerly kept secret by Google and only limited details were released to the public last August. The search engine characterizes it as the “next-generation architecture for Google’s web search.” It appears this new architecture includes crawling, indexing and ranking changes and that it’s not simply an addition or change to their existing infrastructure but rather a complete overhaul.

Based on Google’s announcements regarding Caffeine, we can best surmise that this new infrastructure may include ways of crawling the web more effectively, determining reputation and authority and returning relevant results quicker…however, Google’s spam chief Matt Cutts says the changes are “primarily in how we index.”

Most of these changes do not affect the user-interface (what you see) very much but you may have noticed some subtle changes in a search engine results page in the last few months. Take this search – “buffy the vampire slayer” for example – and how it returns video and news results midway down the page.

If we use the existing infrastructure, Google displays news results at top, video in the middle and images at the bottom.

Google’s new infrastructure has undoubtedly caused quite the stir in the online world, with webmasters and SEOs scrambling to try and understand how this will impact their rankings…along with many a speculative blog post about how to best optimize to the new changes.

In the end though, it still comes down to having the right foundational elements – a crawlable site infrastructure and compelling content – maintaining these will certainly keep you ahead of the curve.

We’ll keep you posted on Caffeine and its effects on optimizing websites for the search engines…in the mean time, keep creating compelling content for your target audience and be sure your site’s architecture is setup so search engine spiders can effectively crawl your site.

Filed Under: Forum Watch, SEO Technology, Site Architecture Tagged With: , , , , ,

Are Long Tail Keywords Suffering Traffic Setback?

May 3, 2010 By admin

This year’s May Day (May 1st) – historically an anniversary observing the Red Revolution in Russia in 1917 – saw a flurry of activity on SEO forums regarding rankings drops for long tail keywords (keyword phrases longer than 4-5 words).

SEO pros and other webmasters have been discussing what they’ve been observing with their traffic for the last several days – even one saying “webmasters from very clean, very large websites report dramatic drops in long tail search traffic. MAYDAY seems to be the appropriate shout-out for those affected.”

Many complaints poured into the WebmasterWorld thread talking about rankings drops for phrases longer than 3 keywords…one post even says his “traffic dropped 50% in a few days, 100,000′s of long tail k/w.”

Another says he was seeing some recovery by mid-April just to see 90% of his long tail keyword traffic fall off by MAYDAY…then many more began saying they’re experiencing the same thing.

WebmasterWorld administrator Tedster gives some insight into what maybe happening – and that is Google is making a change in how they approach their phrase-based indexing, which is made possible by their new Caffeine infrastructure. Before, long tail keyword search results were “best guesses” – interpretations on what you’re trying to say.

Assume that any five words put together could constitute a long-tail keyword phrase – that’s literally so many combinations that your head will spin off, including any computers. Therefore, Google simply guessed what you were trying to look for.

“Something very real has shifted at Google, but apparently it takes a certain type of webmaster/website to notice it – significant long tail traffic closely monitored in detail,” Tedster says.

If you target long tail keywords, are you seeing any significant decline in traffic?

This year’s MAYDAY certainly was certainly a milestone in Google’s update with Caffeine…check back again for more on Caffeine and what it means but don’t be too concerned about this if you have a good, crawlable site with engaging content that’s relevant to your market – in the end, that’s what matters!

Filed Under: Forum Watch, SEO Technology, Site Architecture Tagged With: , ,
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