Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for those “in the know,” didn’t just become a fancy buzzword. It became an industry almost overnight. Now most web savvy CEOs and entrepreneurs know getting a high Google ranking is paramount, especially for service-based businesses whose leads typically come from directory searches: “best marketing Toronto;” “cheap duct cleaners in Brampton;” “24 hour plumbers.”
Caffeine in your “Organic Coffee Suppliers.”
Here are the facts about Google’s “Caffeine” Index, released last month.
- Nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database = Largest Index Ever
- Every second Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in parallel
- 50% fresher results compared with the old indexing system
So what does that mean to the searcher?
Nothing’s changed in the way we search the web. What has changed is the rate at which results are being refreshed. For example, don’t bet that a page you discovered on Monday will still be ranked the same come Wednesday.
To tweet or not to tweet.
The real value (or nightmare) of Caffeine is for businesses (and by extension: artists, charities, associations, freelancers, cool hunters, and everybody else who is looking to be found online) who can once again, or at last, be first to the SEO party. It’s like the clock has been wound back four years – only instead of strategically inserting ten or twenty key words into your site copy you are strategically amassing dynamic content. Dynamic content like blogs and feeds. To avoid an in-depth analysis of the, “should I social media?” debate for just a minute let me dare to oversimplify and say – if you’re a 24-hour plumber and your biggest competitor is a 24-hour plumber with facebook and a blog, Caffeine is going to trounce you.
The bottom line.
Compared with the main index’s approximate 3-4 week update time, Caffeine indexing is now happening in less than 24 hours and sometimes less than one minute. If until now you’ve been avoiding the SEO hype, you’d better believe it. If you’re already using an SEO program or consultant find out what their plans are for keeping you on top. This blog’s life will be short lived. Speed up, or exeunt.