All change for Search Engine Optimisers in the New Year

Nov 18, 2009

Search Engine Optimisers and Webmasters have been in a quiet panic for a while now about the upcoming major change to the Google ranking algorithm.

Many of us old-timers remember the mass suicides (well nearly) after the huge change to the algorithm in November 2003 (called the Florida Update); that caused hundreds of thousands of websites to disappear from the Google rankings during the run up to Christmas. Thus losing many millions of pounds of revenue.

Then there was the roll out of new back-end technology (called Big Daddy) in December 2006 which also caused massive disgruntlement among webmasters and search engine optimisers.

So, if the 3 year cycle is to be repeated, we are due another massive update. Well it is, and we are.

Google have been working away on a radical update to the way sites are indexed and the way the search engine results pages are being constructed.

This update is called Caffeine and has been tested in the wild on a couple of datacentres in the US and it is expected to go live very soon, however, Matt Cutts, a senior engineer at Google in charge of web spam, has posted a blog about the impending update stating that it wont happen until after Christmas.

So, it seems that Google may have learned from the past and are saving webmasters from suicide during the busiest period of the year, however, I have noticed a few changes already. Minor, but changes none-the-less.

Am I scared?

A little. I lived through the last two updates and came out the other side unscathed, but not without hours and hours of research and testing in order to get sites back on the first page of Google. Nobody really knows what is gong to happen, but it is my suspicion that spammers and webmasters using black hat techniques are going to suffer most – which is a good thing.

Watch this space.

Gulp.

Rumours abound as to what the new algo will consist of. Of the many things rumoured to be rolled out with this update, not many will have an effect on websites optimised ethically and within Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, however, there is one change that webmasters and SEOs need to be aware of.

For some time now, the speed at which a website loads has had a bearing in the quality score as applied to Google’s Adwords product. Google engineer Matt Cutts has announced that site speed will now be part of the new algo.

If you are left wondering how important the site speed will be with regards to ranking, I think it is likely to be more important than Page Rank. The thinking behind this is quite simple. Google’s Webmaster Central has a new section, which although in Beta, provides details of the site speed. Clearly, Google must think it’s important enough to worry about. Google has dedicated a lot of resources in developing a tool available as a Firefox plug-in too. Thus, once again demonstrating the importance of such in the new algo.

Similar Posts:

• How important is site speed?
• Does your choice of host have an effect on your SEO and rankings?
• Is Page Rank Important?
• Facebook launches search engine in a head-to-head battle with Google.
• How to move a website without losing rankings

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