35 replies to this topic

[Hex]

Hello - I was speaking to someone today who I consider quite knowlageable in the search industry and was told that caffeine will devalue the links given from blogs and forums. I could not get a source from him as he was on a cell and I have search online and not been able to find any evidence.

I have a couple of test sites I have worked on just doing SE experiments and one of these has only got links from blogs, terms that previously showed the site on page 1 (and still do) have the site half way down page 2 when I use the public beta of googles caffeine update.

It looks to me that this is the case but I wondered if anyone had seen or heard anything official yet that they were willing to share?

Thanks for reading

[Randy]

I've heard nothing official. Or semi-official. Or even rumors from interesting sources who might be in a place to know the truth.

That said I would have to rather doubt the general premise that they'll be treating links from social media platforms as less valuable. Put yourself in Google's shoes and ask yourself if you would risk a few hundred billion dollars by alienating the hundreds of millions of real people who don't really care if "their site" shows up in Google and have never given a second thought to SEO solely because they used a social media platform that made getting content up and out there easy.

That's a big gamble. And if did it and it got out it's probably the one thing that could turn a lot of real people against Google and tarnish their stellar public image. Can you just imagine thousands or millions of bloggers going off on Google each and every day? Or worse yet, ignoring them and throwing their support to someone else?

Yeah, it would be a huge risk. Too big even for Google to take imo.

[Jill]

Maybe I'm out of touch, but hasn't the caffeine update already gone live?

Honestly, I don't look at the SERPs these days much as they're never the same at any time, so I might be wrong about this, but that's what I have been thinking.

Whether it devalues links from blogs and forums, I'd be surprised if there was an across the board change in that. Of course, most of those types of posts shouldn't be worth much so if that's what you're seeing, it makes for a good update, imo.

[OldWelshGuy]

I have noticed that the test sites I have promoted using mainly Social bookmarking sites, have tumbled. I think they have gone the way of directories in that they are devalued. Nothing is consistent enough to say about the other types of link building, and I also considered that it could be a case of too many social bookmarks, rather then the BM's themselves. I.E. if the link footprint is unnatural, then devalue the links.

It isn't as simple as 'google have done this', it is now 'Google have done this, if this, this this and this come together'. The beauty of their sliding scale algo and 200 plus elements.

[Michael Martinez]

Jill, there has been no official announcement that Caffeine has gone live. Nor even an unofficial announcement, from what I can see.

People are making an increasing number of reports in SERP changes across the forums. It may be that Google is rolling some update across the data centers 1 at a time but whether that is Caffeine is anyone's guess.

Google did say Caffeine is not supposed to have much impact on SERPs, but most people seem determined to attribute any changes to Caffeine without taking into consideration that Google is constantly tweaking the algorithms and filters anyway.

[Randy]

I've not done a large study of it by any stretch of the imagination, but again last weekend I did run through about 50-60 keyword phrases that are the so-called money phrases for some of my sites. I did it as I have two times before, as a side-by-side comparison with the Caffeine address and what I get with normal old Google.com. I'm doing these so I can record the snapshots in an excel file just to have the historical context for my own sites and markets. This is the 3rd one of those I've taken the time to do to have the info that I won't be able to get again once Caffeine is live.

For my phrases and the normal Google.com version I get, the results are still very, very different. Different enough in some cases that it's pretty apparent my normal Google.com connection is not yet displaying Caffeine results.

FTR, I don't just look at my own sites' positions in these little trials. I record the position of each of the top 30 sites for each keyword phrase. That's where I actually see a lot more movement. My own sites seem to have remained pretty stready in Caffeine, almost always either holding the same or a better position. Some other sites that are frequent competitors haven't faired as well.

Based upon what I'm seeing since I started recording this data, I don't think Caffeine is responsible for any changes some people have said they're seeing in Google. At least not in the markets I'm in and/or with the version of Google I get connected to when I go to the normal Google.com address.

[Randy]

A quick update.

Matt Cutts posted on his blog yesterday that the full caffeine rollout won't happen until after the first of the year. Probably a wise thing to do since they've gotten some significant negative press in the past for rolling out other updates right before the Christmas holiday season.

Sounds like Caffeine is going to go live in one data center sometime in the near future, so you may start seeing a bit of real traffic from it. But the vast majority won't hit until after January 1.

Also note that the previously available sandbox url to look at the Caffeine results is no longer live. Matt indicated they'll probably release the IP number of that DC once it's accepting live traffic and returning caffeine results so that people can check. I've seen no mention of this yet, so it's probably not quite live yet.

[Hic]

Yeah I read the blog post ..
But I didn't understand the meaning of "in one data center" ?

[Randy]

Well that's the easy part.

Google runs several data centers. This spreads the load of all of those users and can offer them a better, faster experience. A data center is simply a building with lots of computers in it running Google's search services. They've got a bunch of these.

When they release an algorithm update it typically takes a week or two for it to show up in every data center when it goes live. And yes many times they'll test the updates in a single data center prior to releasing it live to all of them.

In this case they're simply lengthening the process. They're going to put Caffeine in just one data center and let it set there for the next 2 months or so. So that people don't get so upset like some have the past few years when in mid-November there is suddenly this huge SERP shake up smack in the middle of their high season that they've been planning for for many, many months.

[Michael Martinez]

Of course, the huge SERP shakeup and smackdown might occur (in November) anyway, since Caffeine is not a search algorithmic-related update. It's just an update to how Google works internally.

I do now suspect that Caffeine is a preliminary stage to Google's long-anticipated switch to real-time search. I think that will play havoc with SERPs but not because Caffeine itself changes the ranking criteria -- rather, I believe it will just conflate the amount of time it takes for people to new content impact the search results.

That's my guess at this point in time.

[Andy_Seo]

Hello all,

Noticed some major fluctuations yesterday, plus also noticed that the Google Caffeine DC (http://209.85.225.103/) was remaining constant. Has anyone noticed major changes or sharp shifts in the past 24 hours? Cutts has denied that Caffeine is being rolled out but there is definitely something major going on.

[SelfMade]

Hello all,

Noticed some major fluctuations yesterday, plus also noticed that the Google Caffeine DC (http://209.85.225.103/) was remaining constant. Has anyone noticed major changes or sharp shifts in the past 24 hours? Cutts has denied that Caffeine is being rolled out but there is definitely something major going on.

yeah, seen major fluctuations. One of my sites pages buzzed off from page 1 to page 2 yesterday...woke up this morning to find it jammed in the top spot on page 1 again??

Another sites pages are occupying positions 1 and 2..despite the fact that these pages have been individually optimised and slightly different...however not similar enough for G to bless me in this way!

Didn't think anything of it until you just mentioned it.

[Michael Martinez]

There is always something going on. I don't think people should attempt to associate ANY algorithmic changes with Caffeine, however, as that update is focused on infrastructure, not algorithm.

[Andy_Seo]

There is always something going on. I don't think people should attempt to associate ANY algorithmic changes with Caffeine, however, as that update is focused on infrastructure, not algorithm.

Sure thing Michael, I agree with you. Just it got me thinking as its 'after the holidays', the DC I mentioned became constant and what I am seeing has similar traits to an infrastructure update in terms of indexing.

I agree with you though about 'jumping the gun' and I didn't mean to do so. We will wait and see. Are you noticing any fluctuations? I can provide some examples over the weekend.

[kynduvme]

im not seeing any major changes