We’ve mentioned the Google Caffeine update in a previous post here on the SEO Insider blog but now, according to Google, their caffeine update is coming soon.
“We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox. Based on the success we’ve seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.” Google
This may well turn out to be a big problem for some website owners, webmasters and SEO companies – but it also may not be. We briefly tested the developer’s preview of the Google’s Caffeine sandbox while it was available and did see some differences in the results but, for the most part, things didn’t look too bad – although we did see some fluctuation. In fact we were quite happy with the results!
Google reiterate that the changes were predominantly ‘under the hood’ and they don’t seem to have redeveloped their ranking algorithm so most users won’t even noticed much of a difference.
“The Caffeine update isn’t about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won’t notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we’re rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure.” Matt Cutts
The Google Caffeine update will initially be rolled out onto one datacenter in order for them to test it and collect data to ensure that both them and we are ready for the launch – not to mention the anxiety some webmasters will be feeling as they don’t know how their websites will be ranked once the changes have been rolled out. They just want to make sure everybody is ready.
“Caffeine will go live at one data center so that we can continue to collect data and improve the technology, but I don’t expect Caffeine to go live at additional data centers until after the holidays are over. Most searchers wouldn’t immediately notice any changes with Caffeine, but going slowly not only gives us time to collect feedback and improve, but will also minimize the stress on webmasters during the holidays.” Matt Cutts
How do you think the caffeine update will affect you? Did you test out the sandbox while it was available? Comment below.
