Executive Summary — The new Google Caffeine search technology dramatically improves the speed and depth of their search system, without decreasing its timeliness or accuracy for specific keyword phrases. The new technology appears more reliant on exact keyword phrase presence in the title tags and on-page contents. And the position of the exact phrase in the title and on-page text appears more important than ever. Various other SEO factors such as number and pagerank of inbound backlinks and in-site architecture such as internal linking, categories and so on do not seem as important in the new Caffeine search technology as they once were. As a result of these changes, the first 3 positions on most keyword search result pages or SERPs do not appear to change significantly. However, we can expect positions #4 through #10 to dramatically change as Caffeine is rolled out in early 2010 across all of Google’s datacenters. Internet Marketing in 2010 will lean more on exact keyword matching, and on the search term showing up early in the on-page TITLE and main PAGE CONTENT.

As promised, we’ve completed an initial testing as of December 10, 2009 between the new Google Caffeine search engine technology and the traditional Google we’ve known previously up until now. The old Google system will be in place through the holidays, with the new Caffeine search algorithm rolling out in early 2010.

From what we can determine at this time, Caffeine is everything Google promised in their announcements to webmasters about their new technology at the Search Engine Strategies convention in San Jose in August.

1. Caffeine is faster, sometimes by up to 50% or more.
2. Caffeine presents a much, much larger index of the total web universe. It will often show that they have indexed and analyzed up to 200% or even more of the web for any particular search term.
3. Caffeine appears to be more timely, or at least as timely as the current system. This means that even though they are much faster at indexing a much larger number of web pages, they are not missing stuff that has just happened or happened very recently. This is good news for news-oriented websites, and for site that present time sensitive information.
4. Caffeine is, if anything, even MORE accurate at presenting high quality websites relating to any specific keyword search phrase. This is probably the most important thing, together with the timeliness of the results, to most end users of any search engine.

Those are the big conclusions, but there is more, especially with regard to the actual ranking for any one site for particular search terms — the all important SERP, or Search Engine Results Position.

If you are a website owner and sell something or publish information for Google Adsense, and depend on traffic from “free organic” search results in Google, then you are extremely concerned with your SERPs for your main keyword phrases.

Our analysis shows some interesting things about the new Caffeine search technology:

1. The first three SERPs don’t seem to change much when you compare the old system to Caffeine. This is especially true for the much envied #1 SERP for most keyword phrases.
2. Also, number two doesn’t seem to change much as we go into the Caffeine algorithm. Sometimes you will see a new or reordered #3, but it also seems to remain the same for most keyword phrases.
3. Postions #4 thru #10 do seem to change under the new system. All-new websites are appearing in these bottom seven of the top ten — sites that had been on page 2, 3 or even lower under the old Google algorithm.

The Old Google Algorithm — Postions 1 to 3

The new Google Caffeine — Positions 1 to 3

So, in positions #4 through #10, we see big changes (see the screenshot images below). In many if not most cases, these positions reflect all-new websites showing up that had previously been relegated to pages 2, 3, or even lower. Obviously, the sites themselves hadn’t changed their on-page content, since the comparisons are made from the same index date. And, we can also assume that the other off-page factors like backlinks, linked phrases, and inbound pageranks haven’t changed either between the two systems.

So, what can be causing this difference? A look at the 2 screenshots below for the bottom 7 SERPs for the keyword “internet marketing” can reveal some interesting and subtle differences. First lets look at the screenshots, then we’ll analyze the differences between them and extract some conclusions.

As you can see from the comparisons below, the new Google Caffeine appears to be much more sensitive to whether the exact keyword phrase itself appears in the TITLE tag of the page than was the old system. Each page showing up in these #4 to #10 positions now uses the exact keyword search term in the title. Early in the title means higher ranking.

Also, the new Caffeine approach is much more reliant on whether the exact keyword phrase being searched for appears early in the on-page content. You can see pages that didn’t have the exact phrase in the old system, but not in the new Caffeine. Earlier in the page content means higher rankings.

These means that off-page factors that were given more importance in today’s current or old algorithm are now down-graded and less important to the new Caffeine approach. Those factors were the reasons that the old listings showed up. The de-emphasized off-site, and some on-site SEO factors might include one or any combination of these previous considerations:

1. How many backlinks any website has and the pagerank of the inbound page itself.
2. The linked phrase of the inbound link — meaning the underlined words you click on.
3. The in-site architecture or organization of the listed site — meaning the categories, sub-cats, and internal links pointing at the page showing.
4. The actual page-name that shows up inside the URL, including the domain name.

There are other factors that may have been de-emphasized, including image file names, alt tag inclusions, and other factors like keyword density and keyword frequency, etc. However, the overwhelming evidence is that at least the TITLE, on-page CONTENT, and word-order inside those elements is now more important than ever.

What can we conclude from this early and somewhat cursory examination of Caffeine? Here are our main recommendations for internet marketers, and general webmasters to take in order to get ready for Caffeine.

Internet Marketing Advice for Google Caffeine

Getting Ready for Caffeine: Our Recommendations

1. Make sure your main keywords show up early in your page TITLE tag.
2. Make sure your main search phrases show up early in the first 50 words of on-page contents.
3. Make sure your main search term key word phrases show up early in your H1, H2, and H3 onpage headlines.
4. Be sure these exact phrases are emphasized or italicized, and made bold inside paragraphs, early on the page.
5. Then, you can, as always, double check that you’ve got good internal website organization or architecture, and a good number of high quality topically relevant inbound backlinks on sites that you do not control.

So, in some ways, this is a return to good solid website building, like it was in the early days of the internet.

Old Google Results for “Internet Marketing”, positions #4 through #10 (click on each image to see Google’s actual results page)

New Google Caffeine Results for “Internet Marketing”, positions #4 through #10 (click on each image to see Google’s actual results page)