Entries for Nov, 2009

by Dan Korvas
Search Engine Specialist

Back in August, I posted how Google began testing their new Caffeine update and allowing the public (well, those in the know) to test out the sandboxed version of this new search update at www2.sandbox.google.com. Don't bother trying to view that site anymore, Google has shut down the functionality of the page and you are met with this message instead:

"We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.
Based on the success we've seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given."

So it is official, the Caffeine update is on its way and will start to be rolled out data center by data center. Judging by the test searches that I ran when the test page was still accessible, my search results really didn't seem all that different from what one would find on the standard Google search engine. It really seems that this update is more of an infrastructure change, as the only real change that most testers (including myself) reported was a faster response time in the results. This is a good thing because a major update to the search engine during the holiday season can have a big impact on online retailers revenues, which has happened in the past with Google. Expect to hear more about the Caffeine update as more and more data centers adopt this update.

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Will Companies Opt Out of Google Index?
by Andrew Grinaker, VP of Business Development/Strategy

Within the last week, Rupert Murdoch has shaken up the search industry by proclaiming that he will contemplate "removing our sites from Google's index." Murdoch and his company News Corp have long criticized search engines for piggybacking on their content for free. He also claims in this article that "readers who randomly reach a page via search have little value to advertisers."

The search engines, including Google, have responded by telling News Corp and other newspaper sites to learn more about the indexing procedures and/or simply turn the index mechanism off.

To circle back on Murdoch's comments, he is stating that he would block entire sites of information to Google's index including the Wall Street Journal and other popular news syndication within News Corp.

In this article on Calacanis.com, Jason Calacanis states that Microsoft and Bing should develop a simple strategy to offer more revenue to providers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, in attempt to have them remove themselves from the Google index.

In my opinion, News Corp and Murdoch are just making claims and I would be wholeheartedly surprised if they actually removed themselves from the index. Sure, there may be issues with the content aggregators but one look at his traffic sources would tell him that Google is referencing 4 to 8x the amount of traffic than any other source. Removing that would be irresponsible for overall traffic numbers and impressions that he could be selling in their advertising network.

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