Google is always up to new tricks and this week’s goes well with coffee. The online giant has released a test version of a new search indexing engine, called Caffeine
The search page looks like Google’s standard, but on the back end, it indexes content in a new way with the goal to help Google “push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions,” according to Google engineers on the company blog.
The new search engine will now include much more social media data and information, said David Berkowitz, director of emerging media & client strategy at 360i. “The biggest thing they have to figure out really is what in all of the social media content right now matters,” he said.
For example, a search for Iran might bring about millions of Tweets and a New York Times story. “Google has to figure out what to put first, and this raises questions. Do they rank certain Twitterers? Do they rank by authority? And they have to do it faster and better than they do it today,” added Berkowitz.
While it may seem like an answer to Microsoft’s Bing, according to Google, this has been in the works for a long time and is not reactionary. Berkowitz agreed. “There is a lot that is happening at these major players out there and it might feel more reactive than it actually is,” he said. “This hasn’t happened over night.”
While a Google spokesman told DMNews that this will not change the buying process for paid search advertising, if the natural content is changing, it could change how brands that use social media think about natural search.
“Once advertisers are seeing more social media updates populating search results, we are going to see advertisers having their brand represented there with both good and bad feedback in the social sphere,” added Berkowitz. “So there will be an ongoing trend of reputation management.”
