Google Caffeine is live: what you need to know

1. Google Caffeine is live: what you need to know
Last week, Google officially announced that their new web indexing system "Caffeine" is live on all Google pages. What does this mean for your website and do you have to change anything on your pages?


What is Google Caffeine?

Google Caffeine is the name for the new method that Google uses to index web pages. In contrast to Google's old method, Caffeine can index new web pages faster:
"Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it's the largest collection of web content we've offered. Whether it's a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before."
Google changed they way in which they index the web because they want to show new pages more quickly in the search results.

What is the difference between the old system and Google Caffeine?

Google's previous system updated the search index in batches.
"Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks.
To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you."
With Google Caffeine, Google's search index is updated continually:
"With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index."
That means that new pages will be displayed in Google's search results sooner if they are relevant to the search query.

What do you have to change on your web pages?

Caffeine is not a ranking algorithm update. It does not change the way Google ranks web pages. Caffeine just means that new pages will be shown much quicker on Google's result pages.
To get your own website on Google's first result page, analyze the web pages that currently have top 10 rankings on Google. The pages that now have a top 10 ranking on Google have done everything right to please Google's latest ranking algorithm.
Analyze the top ranked pages and check how and where they use their keywords. Also check which web pages link to the top ranked pages and how they link to the top ranked pages.
Doing this is a lot of work if you do it manually. For that reason, we developed the Top 10 Optimizer. The Top 10 Optimizer automatically analyzes the web pages that currently have high rankings for your keywords and it compares them to your own website.
You will also get detailed instructions on how to change the content of your web pages and the links to your site so that your site will be listed in Google's top 10 results.

Five things you have to do to get high Google rankings

1. Five things you have to do to get high Google rankings
If you want to get high rankings on Google and other search engines, you must do the right things to succeed. You have to work on many different factors to make sure that your website performs better than the sites of your competitors.


Step 1: make your web pages accessible

Search engines must be able to access your web pages. If search engines cannot parse your web pages then they will ignore your site and you won't get good rankings. Check the following points to make sure that search engines can access your web pages.
Your web server must not return an error code when search engine spiders visit your web pages. If your server returns an error code, search engines won't index your site.
Your web server should return a "200 OK" code to search engine spiders. You can check the status code that your web server returns to search engines with IBP's search engine spider simulator.
You should also check the HTML code of your web pages. While most HTML errors don't cause problems with search engines, some of them can prevent search engines from indexing your site.
The fewer HTML errors your web pages have, the better. You can access a HTML validator in the "Tools" section in IBP.
The content of your web pages must make sense to search engines. Don't use images or Flash to present the main content of your web pages.
To find out if your web page content contains all the elements that are needed to get a listing in Google's top 10 results, check your web pages with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer.
Your robots.txt file must allow search engines to index your web pages. If you accidentally blocked all bots or all directories of your website (this can happen with a simply typo in the robots.txt file), search engines won't list your website.

Step 2: use a meaningful site and information architecture

A good site architecture shows search engines that your website is more than just a collection of random web pages.
Use folders and logical linking to show search engines which pages of your website are related. Search engines should be able to find out that a group of web pages on your site is related to a certain topic.

Step 3: choose your keywords wisely

Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps that determines whether your SEO campaign is a success or not.
It's best to focus on longer keywords for search engine optimization. One word keywords are less likely to convert to a sale and they are also much more competitive. Details can be found here.
IBP's keyword tools help you to find the keywords that will work best with your site.

Step 4: work on your website content

Web sites that only offer articles and affiliate links that can be found on dozens of other web sites will have a hard time to get good search engine rankings.
Try to create unique and trustworthy content that separates your web site from the others.
Write about things you know. If you're an expert in a special field, write as much as possible about that field to make sure that your web site becomes the best resource for that topic.

Step 5: work on your backlinks

Without good backlinks, it is impossible to get high rankings on major search engines. The links that point to your website have a major impact on the position of your web pages in Google's search results.
Try to get as many links as possible from related web sites. The more targeted the link, the more it will help your search engine rankings.

Search engine optimization can be tricky because a small error in one element can destroy all of your other efforts.
Take a look at the checklists in our free search engine optimization eBook to find out how your web site can get top rankings on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other major search engines.