June 2010 saw the release of the new version of the Google search engine codename “Caffeine”. Caffeine provides 50% fresher results for web searches than the previous release. This means by improving the Google indexing and processing search results are returned faster whilst presenting newer and fresher results than previously possible.
How does Google work?
Your search request never searches live web sites; in fact it searches a massive index similar to the one you find at the back of a book. Google indexes web pages, videos, images, blogs, news sites, and real-time updates. Your search results presented to you are scored on page-ranking and relevance to your search query.
How does Google build this index?
Google uses programs known as ‘spiders’ to visit sites and index the content of those sites. The spiders follow all the links on pages and then the links on those pages and so on to build a massive searchable index. For each site that the spider visits it scores and indexes the information based the page itself, its keywords, inbound and outbound links, and many more rules to build up a page ranking.
More information on how Google works can be found at http://www.google.com/howgoogleworks/ (Expired Link, content not available anymore)
How does Google Caffeine work?
With the previous version of the Google search engine the index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the index, Google would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when the spider found a page and made it available to be searched.
With Caffeine, Google analyses the web in small portions and updates the search index on a continuous basis, globally. As spiders find new pages, or new information on existing pages, Caffeine can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before no matter when or where it was published.
How will this change to Google affect your website and its ranking?
Well, the ranking algorithm has not changed, so there will be no change to the position of your results, right? But, if the index has just become larger, by definition there is more competition and it must be harder to keep your website positioned high in the ranking!
One benefit is that if you are a good website owner and create new content and web pages frequently, the chances are that the content will be available on Google sooner.
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Prolateral Consulting is in business to put your organisation back in control of your own Information Technology, specialising in information and messaging security, computer forensic services, and disaster recovery planing.
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Prolateral Consulting Ltd
Luton, Bedfordshire, UK
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