How are you coping with Google Caffeine?

This caffeine shakeup is really making me consider changing my default browser to bing (I hate MS but their search is just better currently)... Google serps are largely off topic half the time now... Example: Top 2 results for "buy pink socks" are about anal sex! Good work on the adult context filter Google! I guess when most people search for "buy pink socks" that's what their search intent was... even if they were searching in safe mode. Quite broken at the moment in my opinion.

I have to drop all my current projects and create a "Google Caffeine" SEO strategy...

so far I have:

1. Implement Micro-format templates.
2. Up keyword densities to absurd proportions because that's all that ranks well in retail anymore.
3. Start funneling payola to DMOZ again now the PageRank is back.
4. Start link building again since a ton of backlinks just fell out of the database.
5. Create more micro-sites to exploit the new #1 slot on google being the highest PR exact match in the domain. With 15 PR6-8 sites I can own a lot of keywords now...if I can get exact match domains for them that don't look too much like spam.
6. Randomize the HTML footprint.
7. Target the SEO Grid to find keywords in my space that I can usurp with ease now that things have been shaken up.

What are others doing to cope with Caffeine? I'll share what ends up working for me, but it is going to take some time to make changes and measure results... I estimate Google Caffeine set me 6 months back in my fiscal goals if I can retune for it fairly quickly, which I think is doable.

Interest in other people's thoughts.

Thanks!

do NOT do a google image search for 'pink sock'

that is all.

tacopalypse said:

do NOT do a google image search for 'pink sock'

that is all.

Click to expand...

With safe search on... google image search works correctly for 'pink sock'... it's just web search where strict mode (which is supposed to filter text too) doesn't work.

tacopalypse said:

do NOT do a google image search for 'pink sock'

that is all.

Click to expand...

lmao maybe i should have listened to you, im scarred for life now...

Get-Rich-Or-Die said:

I see you made a thread now that exact match domains are working

Click to expand...

Public Announcement: I told Get-Rich-Or-Die that I believed keyword matches in domain names didn't matter in google SERPs. All the data I had on the matter almost entirely came from early April, when my assertions were very likely true. However, Get-Rich-Or-Die, is right and I was wrong. It does matter in the new Google.

Here is my reply...

Yeah... kind of... slot 1 on page 1... unless you are the highest PR domain match it wont matter. #2+ need obscene keyword density and high PR... domain matches don't hurt, but they don't really help either. The change makes it so people with a collection of high PR sites can own a bunch of keywords without having to constantly fight for them... whoever has the heaviest link wheel owns the slot.

It's soooo exploitable... why is google doing it? I half way think its a honeypot to somehow trick blackhats into identifying where they invest their time and money (the heavy hitters at least). If they get enough IPs and cookies and referrers they can hunt 'em down or something... It sounds crazy to me too but why would google put something soo exploitable out into the public?

Click to expand...

Why is google doing this?

It also looks like having a DMOZ link plays a hefty role in filling the slot... This feels like they might be hunting for corruption in dmoz too.

Why is google doing this?

Click to expand...

My (personal) thoughts:

Google is in defense mode because they are under "all out attack" from people like us (stating fact, not some sort of complaint ).

From a "user standpoint" their results for search have gone downhill lately (as much as I enjoy making money off of webspam, I hate finding it when I'm looking for something myself )

If their results can't produce, their business stops - completely. Search related revenue is something like 95%+ of their profit.

Best way to defend against a constant "all out attack" (from a military / strategic standpoint):

Randomize & change constantly

Change your procedure, very frequently, so that there is no "standard" that can be observed and responded to.

One month make backlinks to relevant content and keyword density the best way to SEO, the next incoming backlinks and PR. Then something else.

One month make title tags the "best" tag, the next H1 tags. Then something else.

Have 5 or 6 "template" SEO algo's to run, switch them often, and there is no "one way" to SEO for any length of time on purpose.

Here's what it means to people like us:

The bad news - cost to SEO (time researching and reacting) just went up
The good news - even more of your competitors are going to quit in the next 6-12 months

ipopbb - Thanks for your great post love reading them lately with great interest.

Is this caffeine thing world wide? I tryed the experiments you guys mentioned on google.co.uk don't think ive got adult filter on and it didn't come up with anything like you guys mentioned?

As i understand it, caffeine should be worldwide.

Been reading your posts ipopbb. Very interesting and will be keeping an eye out for your future posts...

Are you sure you were not searching for "pink cock" ?

Sky Knight said:

Are you sure you were not searching for "pink cock" ?

Click to expand...

go to advanced options and turn off safe search. you'll see what i was talking about .

evilpixel said:

ipopbb - Thanks for your great post love reading them lately with great interest.

Is this caffeine thing world wide? I tryed the experiments you guys mentioned on google.co.uk don't think ive got adult filter on and it didn't come up with anything like you guys mentioned?

Click to expand...

I only tried on google.com... with the safe search set to strict... don't know on other countries. This whole thing turned my world upside down... I'm scrambling.

I know I can totally rank better than before in the new google with some changes, It will be easy to game the new Google for page 1...

This describes what I think I'm seeing for ecommerce keywords.

Fundamental Google Rank = toInteger((MaxPossibleScore * PageRank/10 * KeywordDensity%) / ((hasDomainKeywordMatch ? 1 : 4)*(hasDmozLink ? 1 : 4)))

I know people will say I'm wrong and that google fits the results to a log curve... which is probably true... but for PRACTICAL purposes this simple equation represents what I think I am seeing as influencers on page 1-2 of Google. I'm not saying this is the google equation, but that an equation like this describes what I am seeing in my keyword space at the top of the google SERPs which is all I really care about at the end of the day.

Of course max possible score determines the likelihood of ties. Right now it feels like max score is very large because 196 ranking factors just don't appear to matter anymore.

other factors not represented... content score, page load times, freshness, uniqueness, publicly traded, fortune 5000, etc... but these kinds of factors... aka the 200 factors they claim to use... look like tie breakers that rarely come into play... they don't really place you with any real weight.

Test my equation for why you do or don't appear in top 20...

1st Dmoz Link?
2nd Domain Keywords?
3rd Absurdly High Keyword Density?
4th Good PageRank?

Then check are you side by side with a lot of similarly balanced sites where a tie breaker or two would make the difference.

The best theory I have heard to date is that Google is doing this to force online retailers to spend more in AdWords. Combined with the new balance of shopping results favoring matching listings with the highest number of google checkout reviews I am really thinking it ads up... this is a strong arm tactic to make companies with budgets pay for search traffic instead of getting it for free organically.

Once again shareholder fiduciary duty interferes and competes against product & service quality. Google is dead to me... I'm not going to bing either... google's tuning their results to work like bings... not just look and feel and feature crap... the results for the most part nearly fall in the same order. That can't be by accident... seriously compare the two side by side... They are more similar than different now.

I personally have had no problem with Google Caffeine or any of their recent updates.

Google has always been about delivering the best content to it's users. The simplest way to make Google love yours sites is to "give them what they want".