Mayday! Google Gets Caffeinated
Don Baker
When it comes to Google's search index, constant change is here to stay. Estimates are that Google made as many as 550 changes in its organic-search algorithms last year — many too subtle to notice. However, every so often Google makes tweaks that everyone notices, particularly website owners who notice big changes (for good or ill) in their sites' search results on Google.
On Several Days in May...
One such update occurred a couple of months ago. Dubbed "Mayday" for its timing at the beginning of May, the recent update caused havoc among webmasters who used online forums to discuss its effects (both positive and negative) on their websites. When asked about the change at a conference, Google spokesperson Matt Cutts called Mayday "an algorithmic change...looking for higher quality sites to surface for long-tail queries." Cutts also described Mayday on a YouTube video.
What Cutts means is that Google tweaked their search algorithm to yield better results for search queries containing three or more words — the "long tail" of millions of less-popular search strings. When added together, such searches can comprise a significant percentage of some sites’ overall traffic.
Note, though, that Cutts qualifies his statement: better results in long-tail searches will accrue to "higher quality sites." What does he mean by this? Google equates "higher quality" with sites having pages of useful, quality content that people visit and link to. The more you build out your site with useful content containing recognized search phrases, the more likely your site will increase in value to searchers and visitors (and, by extension, to Google as well).
Google's Caffeine Jitters
In the video referenced above, Matt Cutts mentions in passing Caffeine, another recent Google change you might have heard about. Caffeine is Google's name for another important change to Google search results, though it concerns the search index, not the search algorithm.
Caffeine represents a significant change in the structure and processing of the massive (100+ million gigabytes!) Google index, allowing Google to deliver "fresher" — i.e., newer — search results than ever before. There's no more waiting for a periodic "Google Dance," or a monthly Google index update. Caffeine technology scans and updates the search index continually.
Caffeine is Google's response to the competitive challenges that Twitter and Facebook present for real-time search — people searching for "what's happening now" rather than "what happened then." Caffeine technology allows Google to find, index and present new content very quickly. Web pages, blog posts, video uploads — even near-real-time Twitter feeds for selected keyword phrases — they're all available shortly after being uploaded to the Web.
By making brand-new content available to searchers almost immediately, Google encourages and rewards the continual creation of good-quality content laced with popular search phrases. Essentially, if you build strong, relevant content, Caffeine will make sure searchers find it.