Google Caffeine and “SEO”
So Google are running a kind of beta test of some updates they’re making – which is fairly novel. While they’re at pains to point out that this is all about ‘infrastructure, indexing and speed’ it’s hard to discern how this differs from the kind of stuff that would normally get folded into a “proper” update and most people are treating it on that basis.
It’s a pretty interesting move, however you slice it though: soliciting direct feedback from users before changes are made is something I can’t recall Google embarking on before. Given that future SERPs are likely to make more use of personalised results and usage stats, I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing.
If you haven’t yet had a butchers, hop over here and check it out. My first take is that the differences between this and the live results isn’t actually that marked – but maybe blended results are getting a little less prominence. Certainly some news and image results are appearing further down the page in Caffeine than in the regular, “decaffeinated” results.
Anyway, like the good little search monkeys we are, we leapt all over the term ‘UK SEO’ out of professional interest and found that Dave is still number 1 (phew!). Then, by approximating the UK results for Caffeine by appending “&gl=uk” to the end of the URL of our query and searching for plain old ‘SEO’, noticed this little blip.

Since our last update about whether Vince has been mucking some things up there’s been a lot of speculation that there is something to do with specific country searches (.co.uk results vs. the regular .com etc) behind it all. In that light, Caffeine showing a result from Google.co.uk just ahead of a result from Google.com is maybe interesting. What is definitely interesting is that the Google.co.uk result is actually just 301d to the .com result lower down which is clearly a goof.
So we’re assuming this is an indexing glitch and will report it as such 🙂
On a wider note, Google are encouraging feedback, so if you see anything you think is particularly jarring click the ‘Dissatisfied? Help us improve’ link in the footer and send it in (making sure you mention ‘caffeine’ in the subject)
[EDIT: Mashable are reporting that the new search is a lot “lightning fast” compared to the old. That assumption appears to be relying on the ‘0.5 seconds’ bit you get in the blue bar above the SERPs. That’s a tiny bit speculative because clearly far far fewer people will be using Caffeine over the regular Google, and unless you’re using a stopwatch and have “lightning fast” reflexes you can’t really tell if that is an accurate figure anyway]
25 Comments
Bill Hartzer - http://www.billhartzer.com/
So, yes, that is an interesting “blip”, how they’re treating a 301 redirect. Maybe they just didn’t follow that 301 redirect? Or maybe they are treating 301 redirects differently in Google Caffeine? Nonetheless, perhaps Google has taken out some factors out of this “test version” of the index.
Dave, have you reported the “glitch”?
Many people are using this new version without the AdWords. I wonder how much money they’re losing by not putting AdWords ads on this test?
Google Caffeine Update – Energy Boost For The Brain | The Other Blokes Blog - pingback
[…] done, results often seem very similar but what was done fast is now done even faster. Others like Dave Naylor seem to be finding few differences […]
Craig Fifield - http://www.craigfifield.com
nice find on the 301 🙂
fwiw, in my testing I’m not seeing adwords so I’ve been ignoring any speed claims until I see that running too
Frank@Doubleshot - http://www.comparegoogle.com
comparegoogle.com has been helpful in finding difference in search results for the two algorithms. Just put in some keywords and see what changed. Could be helpful for SEO engineers.
Google Caffeine Update - Have the Rankings Changed? | AUKSEO - Blog from a Search Engine Optimiser based the UK - pingback
[…] they go live which is an excellent idea to improve the overall results being given. For example Dave Naylor pointed out a problem with a 301′d result in the serp for […]
Lorenzo
Thanks for the post David, very interesting!
comparegoogle.com
just tried a few searches on it, results are mismatching for both versions compared to live ones in the browser.
DaveN
@bill nah.. more people than me will spot this stuff … but I think I have found 3 or 4 big gaping holes due to redirects etc.
Dave
Sameeha - http://www.kerala-honeymoon-packages.com
Nice to read a much about the new product of the search engine master.
Paul Savage - http://comparecaffeine.com/
Just created a tool to compare them. After doing a number of searches of searches and comparing the domains and their strengths, I see a shift in the importance of keyword domain names. Funny thing is that I can’t actually see a correlation. But for similar domains, some searches show higher for keyword in domains and some show lower for keyword in domains.
Any take on this ?
Paul
Chris - http://www.highimpactsitedesign.com
From what I can see on a very limited sample, it seems to be doing better at ignoring the ‘spammy’ sites that are such a nuisance.
Amelia Vargo
hmmm… I couldn’t test the uk results because Google thought I was spamming the system… Very glad you could though, and were able to share your experience with it. Thanks for that.
And Paul, Thanks for creating the tool to compare the two. I’ll be giving that a go now.
Paul - http://www.nw-seo.com
I’ve had a quick blast through Caffeine on a coffee break; it seems to be pretty solid, I’m liking the lower number of fake\spam sites that are popping up. Or, at least, that’s the impression I’ve got, whether or not that’s through the power of suggestion i don’t know!
Google Caffeine – faster but at what price? | SEO WebMonkey - pingback
[…] are still apparent glitches in the system right now, so no Caffeine search results can be trusted as representative at this […]
Mit Ailbu
How do you know it is a 301 and not a 302? Just curious.
seo london - http://www.seo-serviceslondon.co.uk
well it seem to be favoring those the keep to guideline which is great … keep within these and should be fine !!!
Jonathan Walker SEO
I’ve been keeping an eye on the SERPS, it appears as though there has been some updating over the past week, using the &gl=uk at the end seems to filter out more of the obscure results, hopefully we’ll get something like this without having to search for “pages in the UK”
William Atkin - http://www.williamatkin.com
@bill I guess the cost to them isn’t significant, since I’m sure they thought about that.
But I don’t see many significant changes yet. A lot of what I’ve heard around about Caffeine is just too much theory to make me care.
Google Caffeine – faster but at what price? | a minor technicality - pingback
[…] are still apparent glitches in the system right now, so no Caffeine search results can be trusted as representative at this […]
Clare Brace - http://www.clarebrace.co.uk
This so explains some problems I have been hacing with Google!
I have been marketing a website for a client which has a 301 redirect on it and both are now showing up in Google as seperate search results.
Oh the meadness!!
What the plan then? What do I need to be doing to make sure my massive client base dont just vanish from Google one day?
How am I supposed to SEO for personal search results?
H – E – L – P
Clare
Google Caffeine | Weebers - pingback
[…] in The Register offers background info on Google Caffeine, and additional analysis has been done by David Naylor and Bill […]
One Original - http://www.oneoriginal.co.uk
I have found a forum “listed” result that has reduced rank and also lost its listings on the new caffeine update. For example, the phrase “write off debt” in google uk returns a forum listing with a number of articles underneath on page 1, whereas on www2.sandbox.google.com the listing has been demoted to page 2 and has no indented results. Just though it might be worth a note to see if anyone else has experienced an effect with Forums.
Google Caffeine – A Taste Test | SEO Review - pingback
[…] realize something has shifted that this announcement came as quite a surprise to me. Paul Carpenter made the same point on the DaveNaylor.co.uk […]
Thos003 - http://pestcontrolseo.wordpress.com
Hey This just happened again on Dec. 7, 2009. Double listings…. and better yet… User reviews in google were disassociated with the users.
Hopefully they will get it right by Jan. 1st… caffeine is suppose to be live by then.
“Reviews by Google User” Only a Glitch « Pest Control SEO - pingback
[…] See other google glitchs… http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/google-caffeine-and-seo.html […]
judith - http://www.adebtmanagement.co.uk
google now seems to be settled down to one listing under the term “seo”.