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Google Caffeine And The New Ranking Factors
By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009

Google Caffeine is the name given to Google’s “Next Generation”
search engine, which it will use to rank and index all the pages
on the wonderful world wide web. According to all indications,
this is not just another one of Google’s infamous Updates, but a
major “Overhaul” of its index and algorithm – the complex formula
and calculations Google uses to rank all web pages, including
yours.

If that doesn’t sound ominous enough, according to Matt Cutts
(Google Spokesperson) one database is already showing Google
Caffeine, and the full blown version will be released after the
holidays. The reasoning behind this – Google doesn’t want to
upset webmasters and site owners during the lucrative holiday
buying season. In the past, other major Google Updates have come
around this time of the year, most notably the “Florida Update”
which severely affected many web sites and webmasters.

Recently, Google has been more aware and much more generous to
webmasters by being more open and forthcoming in regards to how
it indexes its pages. This time around, webmasters were even
given access to a beta version of Caffeine which Google released
last summer (’09) where webmasters could check to see how well
their keywords and site would fare in this new search index.
This beta site (www2.sandbox.google.com) has now been taken down
by Google.

Like any professional search engine marketer who works online, I
was constantly checking my sites and keywords in Google’s new
search engine. I have drawn some conclusions from what I have
observed, but please be aware it is often very foolish to draw
conclusions and make predictions from your own small sampling of
results. You can end up with egg on your face very quickly,
especially when you consider Google is probably still making
adjustments and refinements on Caffeine as it analyzes the
results.

However, there are certain ranking factors that even Google is
telling us about, mainly “Site Speed” or how fast your site
loads will play a part in how its ranked. We have also heard a
lot about “Broken Links” and if your page or site has them, then
it will probably be ranked lower. Of course, linking out to “Bad
Neighborhoods” will probably still not be a good practice, if you
want higher rankings within Google.

It should not come as a shock or a surprise, that “Over-All Page
Quality” will play a greater role in how well your page ranks.
Keep in mind, Google is like any other company putting out a
product, if that product doesn’t have a high standard of
quality, it reflects badly back on everyone concerned. Google’s
SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are the key to all their
online revenue, they must do everything in their power to keep
that product fast, relevant, current and above all high quality.

Therefore, expect “OnPage Factors” to play a much greater role
in Google Caffeine. Quality unique content, page design, good
navigation, title, meta tags, description, keyword density, alt
tags, page views, bounce rate, traffic numbers, time spent on
page, and the number of social bookmarks may play an increased
role in achieving high rankings. A perfectly optimized keyworded
page, with the keyword in the title, description, meta tags, alt
tags, on the page… will probably get you ranked higher in
Caffeine, as well as most search engines on the web.

This may be pure speculation on my part, but one of the areas
Caffeine will be addressing or incorporating is “Social
BookMarking”, that is the number of social bookmarks a page
receives will determine how high it is ranked. I also believe
one of the major reasons these bookmarks will become much more
important has to do with the whole nasty issue of link buying.

Now, the integrity of Google’s index is not in question, but any
savvy marketer or webmaster knows any individual or company with
deep pockets and huge resources can buy their way into the top
spot. Despite Google’s attempt to stop it, link buying and
keyword positioning, is a thriving industry on the web. Rightly
or wrongly, money and unlimited resources will get you or your
company to the top in organic search, regardless of which search
engine you’re targeting.

All moral and ethnical issues aside, the small webmaster and/or
online marketer is stuck right in the middle, with Google on one
side and these major multinational competitors on the other.
Looming on the horizon is Google Caffeine, a new sheriff in town!

What New Rules Will This Sheriff Bring?

The major question here is this: has the importance of
backlinking been downplayed in this new index in favor of the
keyworded domain and onsite content and optimization? Has there
been a major shift to listing more quality content rather than
relying on the number of backlinks a site is receiving, even
from important related themed sites? The major problem and
question to Google is this: if links can be bought, how do you
keep your organic results democratic and fair, which was the
original intention of Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they
started Google in 1998.

One Possible Solution is Social Bookmarking.

Will we see an ever growing importance of social bookmarks and
links in this new index. It is quite easy to buy 1000 links, but
getting 1000 or 10,000 “re-tweets” is a little more difficult.
Similarly, getting two or three thousand “diggs” may be a little
harder to pull off. Same goes for Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Facebook fans… well you get the picture. Will Google’s use of
these new social sites make Caffeine faster, more relevant, more
current and most importantly of all, can it bring some democracy
back into their index?

Of course, nothing in Google’s new index will be that cut and
dry, that black and white. Other ranking factors such as age of
site, past history and reputation, traffic numbers, authority
branding… will all play a role in whether your site gets
listed on that all important first page. However, on page
factors may play a greater role – title, meta tags, description,
keyword density, alt tags, page views, bounce rate, time spent
on page, and the number of social bookmarks may play an
increased role in achieving high rankings. Website speed or how
fast your site loads may also be a new ranking factor.

Underlying this whole issue is the fact which many experienced
webmasters/marketers already know, Google’s SERPs are not a
one-trick pony anymore. For very lucrative (monetized) keyword
phrases, Google’s results are broken up into Five categories…
Info listings, Video listings, News Listings, Shopping Listings
and Corporate Listings. Forget Caffeine, this is probably the
fairest move Google has made in the last few years to make its
SERPs more democratic.

Another even more puzzling issue for me concerning Google
Caffeine is how much emphasis or ranking power will it place on
“Keyworded Domains”, domain names which have your keyword or
keyword phrase in them. Will these domains be ranked higher?
Webmasters and marketers for years have been telling us we
should always pick domain names which have our major keywords in
them. Just common sense really, someone searching for “brown
widgets” will more likely than not find that item at a domain
called brownwidgets(dot)com or brownwidget(dot)com. The major
SEO reasoning, all your backlinks will inherently have your
searched keyword in the URL, thus bringing it up in the
rankings.

Against this whole backdrop, everyone has to realize the web
itself is evolving, new sites like Twitter, FaceBook… have
changed the whole cyber landscape. Likewise, the web user is
also changing and becoming more web savvy in how they use the
web. Will search engines, not only Google, take a back-seat role
in how we find stuff on the web? As major sites are branded into
the web user’s psyche, will these users go directly to these
sites, by-passing the search engines altogether?

As the web evolves, keyworded domains will become more valuable
and this value will be reflected in the quality of the site. If
you’re making thousands or even millions from your keyworded
domain, you can afford to invest in quality content and design.
Cream rises to the top. Gradually, as these domains become more
valuable, they will probably be snapped up by marketers and
companies who know just how to exploit them. Thousands upon
thousands of keyworded domains will probably be bought up by
multi-billion dollar corporations who finally realize what the
web has to offer. This new evolved web will probably be much
more narrower in scope and very topic specific.

In the “Next Generation” Web the Re-Direct Shall Be King!

Will the role of the search engines, whether it be Google or
Bing/Yahoo, become less and less important, as savvy web
searchers go directly to a site by typing in the keyworded
domain to find what they’re looking for on the web? Cutting out
the middleman may just become a world wide passion as big
multinational and fully funded corporations snap up all these
valuable and lucrative keyworded domains. Will we see these
domains grow in importance and the search engines take more of a
back-up role? Human nature dictates we always take the fastest
route to our destination and the web will be no exception to
this rule.

Have all the smart people at Google figured this out already,
and designed the new Google Caffeine to reflect the growing
importance of the keyworded domain? Of course, we can only
speculate when it comes to just what Google is planning and
doing with its next generation search engine, but will onsite
factors and your domain name play a greater role in their
organic SERPs?

Regardless of what the new sheriff actually does, when the dust
finally settles on all these latest developments, the keyworded
domain will probably be standing tall, watching the sun rise on
a brand new day.