Faster Indexing with Google Caffeine; What does it Mean for SEO?
By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-02-07 23:16:12 | Word Count: 664
In the middle of the year, Google announced its new search index Google Caffeine. It brought users the same information they could normally get from a Google search, but now the new information shows up faster. Those of us who trawl the news section of Google regularly have seen the difference. It used to be that one hour later you might find the same news article. Now, you need to make sure you read something if it sounds interesting because it won’t be there 15 minutes later.
What this means for SEO is that for your website to rank on pages 1 of the SERPs, it is absolutely crucial that you create a constant stream of fresh content for Google to crawl. Gone are the days when e-businesses—especially those that weren’t e-commerce sites, could leave updating for a rainy day.
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Now Google Caffeine will capture only the most up to date information. There are only 30 top spots on a SERP. If your information is old, it is no longer going to get there. E-commerce sites to some extent have to constantly update their content. Their products change, they go out of stock: they have sales and promotions and so on. This does not mean that these changes alone will be enough to get them a high ranking on Google; they’ll still have to generate meaningful, interesting content, create back links and engage in paid advertisement and social media campaigns.
If your online business relies more on leads, then you will have to work a little harder generating new content to stay relevant, but the task is the same. Typically non-eCommerce sites don’t ever think they have to do things like update their sitemaps to help with indexing. This activity refreshes the page and helps to attract Google’s spiders because it alerts them that there is new activity on your site.
Basically, Google Caffeine was not intended to benefit online businesses or even users per se; it was meant to keep them on top of the search engine game. For instance, a freshly published article might show up in a Facebook search much quicker than on Google, well, in the pre-Caffeine days anyway. In the age of Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere, real time information is fast becoming the normal expectation of users. Google is merely trying to keep up.
Unfortunately, Search Engine Optimization got a little harder for the average e-business in the process. Those used to being in a high ranking spot are finding it harder to maintain without considerable, sustained effort. Those who have yet to attain the goal will have to buckle down.
Once you get there, every aspect of your landing page and your site will need to be optimized to keep you in users’ minds and let you stay in a top ranking spot longer. Don’t forget the importance of social media either. Creating quality back links using social media will get information about your company’s products and services circulating around the internet faster than just about any other method. It is the new ‘word of mouth’ in the internet age.
What does faster indexing with Google Caffeine mean for SEO? More intensity and more volume; contact us today to stay on top of these changes and make sure that your SEO Strategy is up to date, we can help. Call us 1-800-736-9618.
