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It appears that I was right telling you to check your Google Caffeine rankings in a recent article called Google Caffeine Update - is it Good News for You?.

Today, just a couple of days after the article went live, Google announced the official launch of Google Caffeine – the new search architecture. At http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ where the developer's preview used to sit we have this message:

"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."

Caffeine is being rolled out and obviously there gonna be changes in the search results. I hope you had enough time to check your Caffeine rankings, because if you did you now know what to expect from the big update it could be an unwelcomed surprise. Keep your Rank Tracker project or excel spreadsheet at hand and all ranking fluctuations should be easy to foresee.

The transition to the new search architecture will take place in spoonfuls – data center after data center. When you see that your site rankings coincide with or become close to the ones you recorded when you last checked your positions in Caffeine that will mean that the new architecture is already there.

For those of you who didn't check Caffeine rankings – don't be surprised to see your sites' Google positions go either way. And even if your rankings go down, there's no need to panic. Just keep on doing good SEO, stick to the best practices preached here on Site Reference and other high-profile SEO sites such as searchenginejournal.com, searchcowboys.com, searchengineland.com and many, many others (there're too many to mention all of them). I'm sure it will help you restore your rankings in the new Google.

I've been monitoring the rankings of a couple of sites in Google against Caffeine with the rankings checker I recommended you to get in the previous article (and still recommend by the way). You can get a free copy of Rank Tracker or any other rank checker that checks multiple keywords and keep an eye on your rankings fluctuations. I'll be keeping my finger on the pulse and as soon as I'm able to evaluate the changes I'll let you know.


Actually I was going to end the article here, but one more tip... If your website's traffic depends on Google rankings which is true for a vast majority of sites here's what you can do to safeguard yourself from a drastic traffic drop. Go to your Google Analytics account (or whatever you use for traffic stats) and export all the major keywords that drive you traffic. Then get a free copy of Rank Tracker or any other rank checker that checks multiple keywords and keep an eye on your rankings fluctuations. This way you'll be able to spot ranking drops as soon as they occur and try to fix things preventing traffic drops. Maybe you'll see your rank for your major selling keyword drop – a PPC campaign can be a quick fix for the time your SEO efforts take effect. Ok looks like I got 500 words ;)

Cheers, and may you rank high in the new Google.


Richard Gilmore is an Internet marketer, freelance SEO, author and addicted guitar player.