google caffeineFor those who haven’t been paying attention or just simply can’t keep up with SEO and Google… This page should be considered one of the most comprehensive overview’s of WHAT Google Caffeine really is and what you NEED to know about it, and what you can stop worrying about if you’re thinking this is going to change all that much.

Google Caffeine Timeline – Leading up to Launch

August 10th 2009 Google invites webmaster community to see Caffiene Sandbox
August 11th 2009 Adds country & language specific feedback to Sandbox
August 12th 2009 Register describes GFS – Google file system behind Caffiene
August 14th 2009 Matt Cutts reveals the reason for Caffeine and some detail
August 26th 2009 Google goes decaf – shuts down sandbox for for upgrades
Sept 12th 2009 Rumors float around twitter of Caffine, but there isn’t any yet.
Sept 18th 2009 ReadWriteWeb says – Caffeine ranks the same 80% of the time.
November 10th 2009 Caffeine Sandbox closed from feedback completely.
November 10th 2009 Matt Cutts announces Caffeine roll out after the holidays
November 27th 2009 Caffeine Live on one data center – others sched for after holidays

That sums up where we’re at today, and – if you had time to read every article, you’d basically get the gist of why it’s called caffeine and what they’re planning to do — but i’ll spare you the reading.

Google Caffeine Overview:

  • What does Caffeine do? Keep you alert!
    Google’s plan is to index search at a more real-time pace. I used to tell clients 4-6 weeks before rankings would really start to develop and that may have to change much sooner. Real time results isn’t just about Twitter either, it’s about blogs now beginning to have a bit more authority than they used to have.
  • What was holding them back before?
    The file system was under a heavy load, the spidering was slower and the index held less information. Hence the invention of Google’s new file system GFS2 (Google File System 2)
  • What’s New in Caffeine?
    Bigger Index – Google now holds more data than in the past.
    Faster Indexing – Google now gets current events quicker than ever before.
    Ranking Update? – Slightly higher authority of sites that are being updated more often than others. Blogs get more authority, but also get held more accountable for their approved comments & spam links.. Both posted on other sites and on your own site.  Other than that 90% of rankings stay exactly the same according to Summit Media’s Report after checking over 9,000 search keywords.

What should you be doing BEFORE the holidays are over to ensure a smooth transition and continued business into the new year? Quite simple… Here’s a easy to follow checklist to help you be prepared for the Caffeine update.

  • Check all comments on your blogs & websites for any approved content linking to spam websites.
  • Ensure your plan in 2010 is to update content more regularly & quickly even minor edits will help.
  • Look out for a potential slap if you’ve gotten text content links from other blogs that were nothing to do with your community or niche market.
  • If you haven’t already, sign up for Twitter and try and get into Google News and constantly update your material.

If any of your SEO friends tell you that the big ranking change in the New Year is a response to BING’s real-time search? Tell them straight up that you know for a fact GFS2.0 file system and the next generation larger index and faster indexing has been on the horizon since before Bing’s launch.

If any of your SEO friends tell you that Matt Cutt’s warning ” …but will also minimize the stress on webmasters during the holidays.” as some kind of signal that this update is HUGE and will change EVERYONE’s rankings, they’re sadly mistaken. Fact is that Google wouldn’t be creating any friends by announcing a new algorithm during the Christmas retail season and Google does serve BOTH users and webmasters whether you choose to see it that way or not. Plus, not launching Caffeine durring the holidays is probably only 50% “doing it for the webmasters” and more like 50% because of Google’s yearly winter code freeze that happens every year anyway.. Which is why we saw so many new features launch in the last few weeks.

I hardly had the time to write this detailed post, for those who know me. But – I’m hoping to take the stress off everyone and educate those who wanna know more about this impending update.

Post your comments! I invite all conversation to this blog :)

Daniel J Deyette

Google Doesn’t Hate New Websites

The old myth has been circulating around the internet for over 8 years, and I even believed it, thinking if a client had a brand new domain, with very little link popularity or even zero that there was no way to expect any kind of organic Google traffic early in the game…

PPC being your only option to getting some testing & search traffic up and going until we did a pile of link building and general press before you got traffic…

Last week, Google proved me wrong. Thanks Google!

Domain Created on: 18-Nov-09
Links built on the 20th (about 8 ~ 10 directories submitted)

Yes, within 10 business days, the site received about 20 hits via very specific searches. No, no waterfall or firehose of traffic by anyone’s stretch of the imagination, but still! Within 6 days, it started ranking in organic searches for search terms… Many clients have wanted the domain to show up for it’s own NAME within 2 weeks and that doesn’t happen, this one not only does that but also gets searches for it’s content!

Proof there are still niche markets to be had out there. Keep hunting, because treasure troves are still out there. No, 10 searchers is nothing to get excited about, but I will say that this market I’m referring to is huge, so when it DOES start ranking for the terms we’re aiming for we’re in for a BIG bonus.

Just wanted to clear that myth up because truth is the more content we post and the more links we build the more that will really come into play in the next few days.

I won’t post the topic or niche though because this client deserves a fresh chance at the market before anyone else jumps in…

But still, you should know it’s possible!

Until next time
Daniel J Deyette

Why you shouldn’t install Chrome OS

chrome os safety So, with the widespread publicity around Google’s Chrome OS one might start asking themselves, why not go ahead and get into it the second it’s ready? Before you start thinking that this could solve your PC computing problems for good and that this is your next big move away from Windows & Mac operating systems and into the cloud computing world where data backups aren’t neccesary… Consider the Google track record for customer data and security…

Consider when A bank forced the suspension and deletion of a Gmail user’s account and all his emails.
(Imagine if that was your "email" program on Chrome OS)

Or when one of the writers on Lifehacker’s Wife had their Gmail account hacked and started sending out weird emails to her list…. (Imagine if that was your Chrome OS)

Or when one of the Twitter employees had their Google Docs account hacked , giving them access to her notes, spreadsheets, calendars and other documents the company relied on…

Cloud computing is a dream everyone shares, but it’s also a big nightmare waiting to happen. Google and others are saying you wouldn’t rely on this for your full time computing needs but a great thing for netbooks, but often I think the tasks we do on our netbooks and other gadgets are sometimes the most sensitive tasks we ever do!

Paying bills, buying things, logging into accounts remotely to check up on things, accessing our work VPN.. Many things you wouldn’t realy want to trust Google Chrome to help you do… If you really do everything online, that’s great… But I would suspect that Chrome OS might not be your best friend for all things "internet".

Consider Google’s track record for helping users with their "Free" services , and at what cost… I mean, when even Twitter’s Google Docs get hacked, who’s safe?

If you:

* Don’t have a brand that everyone knows
* Don’t have an overflowing wallet bursting at the seams
* Don’t have 2000+ Friends on Facebook & Celebrity Status

Chances are, you’ve got a new website, just starting out that doesn’t currently
get a ton of traffic, and what little traffic it does get is from your mom looking at it.

Sorry, that was probably not nice, but you get where i’m coming from.
This is a juicy traffic tip, coming your way here….

Google’s new update actually hurts small businesses who have quite relavent
products & solutions but lack the industry popularity of bigger companies.

At the moment, next to having "Impressive" web 2.0 social skills, or a big
adwords budget this strategy I’m about to discuss is the ONLY way to get
traffic from Google!

My previous post "Google search queries getting longer" was a hint, but what
about the actual strategy? If you only knew that by doing a hint of keyword
research before you got started on writing the Blog posts you should already
Be writing, and the pages to your site that you should already be adding,
You’d be getting an additional 30-50% more traffic!

That’s right, long tail keywords are still untouched by brands. Long tail keywords
are more specific than the brands usually attract. They’re more indepth and,
get this, they’re also more targeted. More likely to buy.

My book UnstoppableKeywords.com dives deep into how you can easily
find those long tail keywords that would be easier to rank for.

Daniel Deyette
SEM/SEO & Copywriting Expert.
Social/Viral Media consultant
Affordable SEO

Google Search Queries Getting Longer

People are typing in longer searches than ever before, according to Hitwise,
a noted competition intelligence provider.

This means quite a few things though, really. It means that Google’s edge on understanding what people
want could be less effective than it was in the past. It could also mean that people are getting better at knowing exactly what they want.

Regardless, it sure points to tightening up landing pages and adding more content to the ole’ website!

Until next time

Daniel J Deyette

Understanding Google SEO & Myths

I have an inside advantage to Google that most people I know simply don’t.

No, it’s not a girlfriend that works there.
No, I haven’t got Matt Cutt’s cell phone number.
No, I haven’t hacked into their systems either…

No, what I’m talking about is experience. For the last 7 years, I’ve watched
the search giant value pages in different ways. For those who still don’t understand
search engines, you’re doing yourself a major dis-service. Mind you, there
isn’t anyone out there explaining it very simply either. It’s all pretty technical.

SEO History for Non-Technical Folks…

(1995) In the begining, there was words. Websites had words, people searched
for words… But search engines didn’t exist. Directories like Yahoo did.
You searched for Plumbing, and guess what? AAAA1 Plumbing was #1.

(1996) Then Came Search engines, The more times you mentioned the words
(Keyword Density) The more "on topic" your site was.

That seemed to work quite well until folks started making websites that said
the word "cheese" 5,000 times at the bottom of each page. Yay, we’re #1
for cheese in Yahoo! How Cheesy is that?

(1998) Google Arrives…

Directories (Are ya in the internet phone book at least?)
Links pointing to the site (Do other people like your site enough to talk about it?)
* Age – Ah yes, and some experience would be good!

Google’s original theory was that if all these documents were on a "main server"
in an office, how would you locate the document the searcher was looking for?
We’d assume it would be the most popular one everyone else was talking about
and using (links). We’d also assume i’d be probably one that had been used for a while
(Age).

(2005) On January 18th, Google created the "no follow" tag and began tracing links
that shouldn’t count as a "popularity" vote. They shouldn’t give value to your rankings
and standings in the engines.

In December of 2005 the entire game changed with the "Big Daddy" update. Many
of those changes are still in effect today.

Now, a link is not just a link… (Well, except maybe on Yahoo…) But MSN & Google
have decided to include the idea of "trust".

Trusted links are those that come from OLDER more credible sites. Sites that are
linked to other major outlets like Associated Press, Reuters & CNN and similar.
The NUMBER of links alone is truly just an imaginative number that means nothing.
3 Links from CNN, BBC & other press could easily out rank a site with 3,000 links
from unknown sites.

(2005-2007) Birth of Web 2.0 & Social Media In Search

Sites like digg.com and social bookmarking as well as social networking like ryze,
linkedin, facebook and literally thousands of other ones popped up as well. They’re
now starting to shift the results on Google results like a tsunami under the ocean
simply thru popularity.

What Matters Today? Modern Information Retrieval Via Google.

Things have changed ALOT since 2006. Some major things have been implemented
that are evolving to this moment.

I’m starting a website called GoogleMythKiller.com (feel free to signup but it’s not
even close to ready yet…)

I’m going to dispell things like.. .

Can A New Website Rank In Google?

YES! It can, want to know how? Sign up.. I’ll show you how with Few links and no
promotion, you could show up as a major player.

Does Pagerank Matter?

No, and I’ll tell you why it shouldn’t be a part of your planning.

Can you get banned for duplicate content?

Nope. Will duplicate content rank, yup! I’ll explain more about that too.

Lastly, another big one. Can you get links too quickly? Yes!

There are some types of links where you can get over 100,000 overnight (yes, that’s a real
number) and Google will value every one of them. And there are other scenarios, where
you can get 50 in one day and get bumped out of the index… Scared yet? If you don’t know
what i’m talking about, you owe it to yourself to find out more.

This Week’s take away…

Google isn’t built by web marketers, it’s built by Engineers. Engineers think logically and
very scientifically. Look at your website navigation.

Navigation should be very simple and look much like a science lab textbook or university
website..

Home page (Menu)
- News
- Press
- Updates etc.

- Health
- Heart
- Lungs
- Breathing
- Resperatory

See how every topic is nested inside another topic? Consider your blog categories on this
same level. Do you keep on topic & Use lots of related words within each category?

When sites like this get spidered they gain instant crediblity & trust within google. It’s just one
part of over 200 signals google uses to control the results showing up when you search.

I will begin from credible sources to cite MOST of those 200 signals and the guestimate
on weighting based on 13 years observing the SEO Industry.

Sincerely,
Daniel J Deyette