So google have decided to launch a new and improved version of their search engine. Today they launched their developer preview of it titled “Caffeine”. So whats it all about? Well the new search engine ( which can be tested at www2.sandbox.google.com ) is apparently a lot faster than the old engine. According to Matt Cutts most of the changes are in things like our core indexing, so there’s less changes for things like rankings. Lots of users won’t notice a big difference. Below are some quick Q&A posted on his site:
Q: How do I check out the Caffeine update?
A: If you search on http://www2.sandbox.google.com you can get a preview of how the search results will change over the next few weeks and months.
Q: It doesn’t look any different to me?
A: The Caffeine update isn’t about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won’t notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we’re rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure. But some of the search results do change, so we wanted to open up a preview so that power searchers and web developers could give us feedback.
Q: Is this Caffeine Update because of Company X or Y is doing Z?
A: Nope. I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months. I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we’ve done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward. Nobody cares more about search than Google, and I don’t think we’ll ever stop trying to improve.
Q: The url http://www2.sandbox.google.com doesn’t seem to work for mobile phones? I can only test on google.com, not google.co.uk?
A: That’s right. For now this is a only a preview, so we didn’t hook up a mobile version or an international version at this point. You’ll have to search on google.com to see the results right now.
Q: How do I give Google feedback?
A: If you want to give us feedback on how the search results are different, look on the search results page for a link at the bottom of the page that says “Dissatisfied? Help us improve.” Click on that link and type your feedback in the text box. Make sure to include the word caffeine somewhere in the feedback.
Q: Is there a way to give feedback in person?
A: Yes! If you want to give me feedback in person, I’ll be at Search Engine Strategies San Jose this week. I’m doing a site review panel on Thursday, or just walk up and say hello!
So How Does it Do When Measured Against the old Search Engine?
As usual Google lives up to expectations. The following are how it faired under the following tests:
Speed:
It’s almost twice as fast
Compare that to the original Google search:
Index Size:
The index size seems to have vastly increased.
Compare that to the original:
So why don’t you try Caffeine out for yourself!
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