How to Rank in Google Caffeine

Last Updated on Saturday, 27 March 2010 02:19 Written by vc1026 Saturday, 27 March 2010 02:19

Back in August of 2009, Google made an announcement about a new version of its search algorithm that was going to be released soon.  It made a public ‘sandbox’ so that webmasters, power users, and the general public could use it and give feedback on the quality of the search results.  For a while, this was available at http://www2.sandbox.google.com, but it is no more.  Currently, it is only available via direct IP address to one of Google’s datacenters at http://209.85.225.103.

Anytime there is a major change, webmasters and business owners get worried about how it is going to affect their rankings.  And, this is completely normal since being on the first page vs the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th page, can mean the difference between making 6 or 7 figures a year or making next to nothing.  Many businesses heavily rely on Google for traffic direct to their site and have not branched out into other methods of getting traffic.  This, for many businesses, will not only cause a lot of headaches when Caffeine is fully released, but it may also cause some businesses to go bankrupt.

When I first heard about the new algorithm, I’ll admit I was a bit worried.  Learning how a new algorithm treats different types of links can take some time to fully grasp.  But, I ended up being pleasantly surprised.  Most of my sites have actually improved in rankings for Google Caffeine.  So, when I read all these articles and blogs about Caffeine causing headaches, it makes me smile a little because I’m one SEO who can’t wait until Caffeine is in full effect.  My clients and my sites are going to improve – a lot.

One of my favorite tools to use right now to check Caffeine results is http://www.comparecaffeine.com.  It’s a cool online tool that lets you view results from google.com vs the Caffeine datacenter in a side by side view.

Techniques to Rank in Google Caffeine

So, what techniques do I use to get really good results in Caffeine?  I’m not going to say EXACTLY how I get my rankings, but here’s some general guidelines that may help you when trying to get your site to rank.

Fully leverage the power of blogs to link back to your site.  Don’t just focus on high PR or old domains, but build a great link profile by using a wide range of link sources.  Look for high PR options, but don’t ignore PR zero and PR1 links.  Everything has value.  If you link from PR 3 and above only, does that look natural to G?  No.  Also, don’t just focus on blogs.  Article marketing is still a great source of backlinking if you do it correctly.  Help the spiders find your articles and blog posts by bookmarking them and then pinging the feeds of those bookmarks.

Upload pictures to flickr and panoramio.  Use the video sharing sites.

Be consistent.  Build links consistently over time and it will pay off.  If you don’t see results right away, keep building.  If you’re too aggressive and get a filter (some call it a penalty, like the Sandbox), keep buildling but vary the types of links and don’t over optimize.  Try to find high trust, relevant links.  How do you do this?  Look for older sites in your niche and see if you can get a link from them.  Find an older site that looks like it is owned by a small company or a webmaster who might be willing to sell you a site that is already established.  You can then link back to your site from this newly acquired site, or just 301 redirect everything to your domain.  The trust and link power do reduce slightly through a 301, but in my experience, it still passes a lot of linking power.

And, although I haven’t really “tested” it, my gut feeling is that you should try link from unique, relevant content as much as possible.  If you’re using spun content, it has to be really good and spun a lot.  I think I’ve seen better results when I’ve linked from completely original content.

Make sure your site loads quickly.  This isn’t so much about the server your on, but more so about how large your pages are and whether it takes 3 seconds for your page to load or a minute and a half.

Recap:

1. Link from all types of PR domains, blogs are great.

2. Try to get high trust links.

3. Link from all different types of media – video, picture sharing, software, articles, blogs, press releases, blog comments.

4. Don’t build and then stop.  Build links consistently.

5. Link from unique content.

6. Make sure your pages load quickly.

Brand New Sites – Google Sandbox

If your site is brand new, don’t overdo the linking.  Everyone talks about the Google Sandbox.  It is more of a Trust box, and if you’re careful, you can often avoid it.  Think about it – if you build 500 links to a brand new site with all the same anchor text, that looks engineered, not natural.  Build slowly for new sites, and once you’ve been in the top 10 for a few weeks, then you can push a little harder without causing too many issues.

New sites tend to jump around often anyway.  If you do decide to go full force and build tons of links quickly, in most cases, I think you have to keep at it.  Don’t build and then stop.  Keep building and you’ll drive right through the filter into a better position than you were originally.

If you don’t want to figure all this out by yourself, and would rather have someone do it for you, contact me and I’ll help come up with a plan to attack your market so that you’re the one on the first page.