Google launches major search algorithm update

Internet giant Google has announced a major update to its search technology that could force businesses to change the way they operate and market themselves online.

The revamp could also be part of a response to Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, which was released in late May and has surprised analysts in its ability to gain a small amount of market share.

On the company’s Webmaster Central blog, software engineer Sitaram Iyer and principal engineer Matt Cutts wrote the “Caffeine” search technology has been in development for awhile, but has remained secret.

“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.”

“The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.”

The changes are being described as the biggest alterations to the Google search algorithm in a number of years.

The post is light on details, and Google will not disclose exactly what part of the algorithm has been changed, but the alterations affect the way in which search results are displayed. Results are now displayed much faster than the current Google search, and in a different order.

Google Caffeine pushes down image and video results, and places an emphasis on product-related results, moving them further up the page.

The announcement has led many tech analysts to speculate that businesses will have to amend their search strategies to comply with Google’s new code, which is set to be revealed over the next several weeks.

But Jim Stewart, chief executive of SEO firm Stewart Media, says businesses shouldn’t be too worried about changing their search marketing strategies if they are focussed on making content-rich websites.

“If your SEO strategy is about trying to trick Google, then yes, you will have to change your strategy. But if you’re focussed on presenting a good website with the keywords in the right places and makings sure you have good content, then you will be fine.”

Stewart says he has tested the new Caffeine model with some of his clients’ websites, and is actually seeing better results than in the normal Google search.

“At the end of the day, with every change Google makes they’re trying to deliver better, more relevant results. So long as a site owner is thinking alongside these lines, then they will do okay. We’ve already checked our clients’ sites in the new format and we’re getting better results.”

Iyer and Cutts wrote in the company blog post that businesses should test the new model and seed feedback about their results.