If you haven’t heard, Google has been working on a serious revamping of its search infrastructure (it may have officially launched by the time you read this) which it is calling Caffeine. In webmaster’s circles, this has upcoming revision has caused some major consternation and hand wringing; what happens if Google significantly changes its algorithym and rankings fall? What if they begin to penalize in-pointing links? What if this, and what if that?
Yawn.
There’s no need to panic about Google Caffeine, or any revision to any search engine’s database. Ever. But only if you recognize Google’s true mandate, and play by the rules.
So what is Google’s true mandate?
This one is simple; deliver the best, and most relevant search results for any query entered into the search box at Google.com. Failure to do so threatens the core of Google’s business – visitors will go elsewhere to perform their searches, and Google’s advertisers will follow them. And that, my friends, is where the money is. So you can bet your you-know-what that Google is going to be pretty darn interested in getting it right.
If you play by the rules, and have not focused on manipulating rankings (by engaging in underhanded link-building strategies, for instance) but instead, on creating the sort of web site that adds value both to Google’s database and your visitors, what exactly have you got to fear from Caffeine? It is, after all, in Google’s best interest to drive visitors to your web site; in fact, it even adds to their credibility to do so.
On the other hand, if your web site maintains its top ranking positions as a result of various nefarious “black hat” strategies, and does not offer anything especially valuable or unique to your visitors, be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Engaging in such practices is rarely in accordance with Google’s mandate of delivering the positively-absolutely-unequivocally best results to its visitors. So yes, you can expect to see your ranking positions drop if this is the case.
Myself, I’d be surprised to see any dramatic changes. After all, as complicated as some of the mathematics behind ranking algorithyms may be, the way Google sorts its database will still be determined by many of the same criteria…
- Domain age/reputation
- Page text and critical HTML tags (<TITLE> <H1> etc)
- In-pointing links
… there’s really no other way to do it. It would be nice, however, to see Google toss out a lot of the crap that is threatening to strangle their database.
In the end, there are no short cuts to top rankings and search engine traffic. If you play fair, you can expect Google to reward you handsomely. If you do not, every major revision to the database is going to have you tossing and turning at night. It’s not worth it. Focus on building the sort of site Google wants in its database, and you can never go wrong…
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