Google doesn’t mind sharing how changes to their algorithm impact search engine behaviour. Really, they do have their best interests in mind: they want to be the premiere Internet search engine that everyone loves to use—and other search engines chase. In order to do that a Google Fellow recently spoke about the latest algorithm update titled ‘Google Caffeine’ and how it impacts the lives of web designers, web copywriters and ultimately businesses who use their websites to grow their business.
So what is an Algorithm?
The code and methods that give life to a search engine are referred to as an algorithm. Asearch enginealgorithm is like a big mathematical secret that only search engine brain surgeons and programmers can possibly understand. That’s fine because the huge majority of us only care about the information the search engines bring back to us when we search for stuff. An algorithm ‘update’, like Google Caffiene, is a tweak to that secret recipe intended to improve the quality of results returned to us when we do a search.
What Does Google Caffeine Do?
Sometimes when you perform a search for something on the Web it may be for information that has been in the public domain for a long time. An example might be a search for ‘what is the state flower of New South Wales’? This is a piece of information that has been on the Web for several years. It rarely is updated. So if you search for that information today, tomorrow and next week you’ll find that the results are the same. A new page may pop up on the search engine results page occasionally over several months, but certainly not on a daily basis.
On the other hand, there are events that get a lot of searches because they are hot items of the day or hour. An example might be searching for the latest results for your favourite tennis championplaying at the Australian Open. Prior to the Google Caffeine algorithm update the results you saw for this type of search wouldn’t necessarily present the most current updates on the Web.
Google Caffeine changes that now. To show you what I mean, I did a test. Being a bit of a horse racing fan I was following the news on the Breeder’s Cup championship held today in the United States.
I searched Google for the phrase ‘breeders cup’ and was presented these results:
Notice how Google returned the most recent results to me. A post from 9 minutes ago announced that Drosselmeyer (a bit of a longshot) won the Breeder’s Cup. There are a couple of other results that follow this that occurred within the same timeframe, a video and article about upsets. The 4th listing is the Breeder’s Cup website. Not unusual since it would be the authority site for the Breeder’s Cup. What is impressive is that it was knocked out of first position by the more current Drosselmeyer news clip.
How to take advantage of the Google Caffeine change?
Google search engines spiders love fresh content. Keep your website content fresh by leveraging topical news within your posts. Use Google alerts to keep on top of news that is important to you or your industry. Chances are a static website will lose ranking and traffic unless you leverage fresh posts, articles and news to keep those spiders fat and happy.
Your Next Step…
You get it, but don’t have the time to do regular content management. Ask about how we can keep your website on top of search engine results with our SEO copywriting services.