Google open a fresh pot

Google last night announced they have completed their migration to their new web indexing system known as ‘Caffeine’.

This new system basically allows them to push anything Googlebot finds into the main index in seconds rather than weeks.

Previously Googlebot would crawl the web, find a site, then submit its content to another system for processing. This other system would then sort and process the content and work out what its all about. It would then pass it to another system for inclusion in the index. This was a time consuming process and was also done in batches, which means your site would have to wait for all the other sites in the same batch to be processed before being submitted to the index.

The new system is different, rather than doing things in large batches, it will work on smaller portions, more portions at the same time and submit them all to the index straight away, allowing users of the search engine to see information much much quicker, and this is just the start!

google caffine comparision

Image copyright of Google

There are several rumours floating around about what lies in store next for Google users and their shot of caffeine.  But for now we will have to wait and just enjoy our new “real-time” search results.

You can real the full article on the Google Webmaster Blog

What happened to the design?

Today, one or two of you may notice the site looks a little different. That’s because the style sheets for both my site and the blog have been removed for one international day (that’s about 48 hours to you and me) to celebrate CSS Naked Day.

Every year, website developers across the world remove their style-sheets and show off their <body> to help promote web standards. Its a great opportunity to double check and show people that your website is written for and accessible to all.

To know more about why styles are disabled on this website visit the Annual CSS Naked Day website for more information.

Google trial website design

Google are playing with a new website design for a select number of thier ‘.com’ visitors today, not too much has changed and they are keeping with the minimalist look, but have changed a few colours and replaced the default browser buttons for some nice blue images.

The biggest change comes on the SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages) where the navigation has moved from the top of the results to a left hand column

New Google SERP Design

New Google SERP Design

Iif you cant wait for it to be rolled out worldwide, you can get a sneak peak by following these steps

1) log out of your Google account if currently logged in

2) goto http://google.com/ncr

3)  type the following javascript into your address bar to add a cookie to your browser

javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com"); alert('cookie added');

4) reload the page and you should see the new design…

New Google Design

Googles Nov 09 Redesign

UPDATE:

if you would like to remove the cookie from your browser, them enter the following into your address bar

javascript:void(document.cookie='PREF=20b6e4c2f44943bb;path=/;domain=.google.com;expires=Sat, 01-Jan-2000 00:00:00 GMT'); alert('cookie removed');

googles new search engine

Internet giant Google have announced a preview of their new upgraded search engine for developers and web masters to test. While the UI is pretty much the same , there have been quite a few ‘under the hood’ changes. Nicknamed Caffeine, the update is mainly to the algorithms and code base used by the indexing giant. It will allow more relevant results and real-time data to be returned by searches.

You can preview the new search engine by visiting the sandbox at – http://www2.sandbox.google.com

If you would like to test country/language specific results you will need to edit the query parameters

read more at…

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/08/help-test-some-next-generation.html

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/caffeine-update/

Update – 13/08/09 @ 08:48

the sandbox is currently off-line due to server maintenance

Update – 15/08/09 @ 08:48

the sandbox is back up and running

Bing to power Yahoo

Microsoft and Yahoo yesterday announced a 10 year partnership to help each other on the web.
Microsoft will help Yahoo by providing Bing to power Yahoo! Search and a return in revenue generated through Yahoo’s many portals, in return Yahoo will become the “worldwide exclusive relationship sales force” for both companies helping Microsoft with its online sales and promotion.

Im not sure if this is a good thing or not, on the one hand its a shame to see an internet pioneer hang up its search engine boots in favour of the blood money it will get from Microsoft for embedding bing, but then Yahoo is a network going nowhere but downhill, used only by those that have used it since the early days or those that cant figure out how set a new homepage, missing out on the new generations as they flock to cool uncle google for their search needs, the revenue they will make from Microsoft will probably help the name Yahoo! stay in the headlights that little bit longer.

You can read more on the Yahoo! corporate Blog or the special site set-up to answer your questions.