Google Caffeine coming – could it screw your rankings?
Google hit the headlines today with the announcement that their latest version of their search engine code named Caffeine will be going live soon.
SEO companies who don’t keep up to date with changes over at Google could receive a nasty shock come the start of the new year.
Announced in August of this year, Caffeine has been available for public testing on Google’s sandbox website but it was replaced yesterday with a notice informing the world that it will be going live soon.
Google claim the new version is faster, more accurate and produces more relevant results but many webmasters have who have witnessed rankings drops in the new Caffeine test site are concerened about drops in rankings. Moreover, the timing of the news is already causing a stir among many site owners concerned about potential loss of sales from rankings drops, especially just before the Christmas sales period.
Could this be a potential sales catastrophy?
Google certainly has a history of causing mass panic amongst online retailers when it makes these changes and you only need to look back at the catastrophy caused by the Florida Update in 2003 however, it’s safe to assume there won’t be any repeat. Google’s Matt Cutts assures us in his blog that the roll out will not begin until January so online retailers can relax – for the present.
Winners and losers.
Whilst we all look forward to better more relevant results, there can be no doubt that there will be some winners and losers when the new version is rolled out.
If you’ve been monitoring your rankings between Caffeine vs Google then chances are that you have noticed some differences between the two sets of results.
Interesting times ahead!
