Google launches new index - will your site be affected?

Google has been testing for some time a new way of indexing websites, and offically launched it this Tuesday with the codename of "Caffeine".

Basically, Google indexed websites, which were the major source of web content, and refreshed reguarly to make sure your site was still alive and current. Depending on where your site was displayed in the search results was dependant on how good your SEO was, and relevance to any particular keyword and search query.

Other factors and content were also searched, such as forums, but at less regular intervals.

With recent deals with Twitter and Facebook, and the explosion in social networking, content now is available across a broader spectrum, and people want access to upto the minute results, eg cutting news stories, major debates etc. So Google decided it was time to change how it indexed content, and absorb it form all these new mediums, as well as refresh content quicker.

So whats the impact for my own website?

This is the key question, and is what most people in the land of SEO are watching very closely. For me personally, I always monitor our websites performance in all of the search engines, by tracking volumes of indexed pages and links, so I shall be interested to see how our performance is affected over the coming months, and will be closely investigating any abnormal differences in our conversion rates.

In theory, nothing has changed, content is still king, well constructed, content rich sites should continue to do well, and the more people linking to you, should continue to be a badge of authority.

But it may make stale, non updated websites start falling from grace, as the mantra seems to be fresh, updated relevant content.

Time will tell, and maybe compare results in a couple of months!

For more info on the new google index, see the offical blog.
Official Google Blog: Our new search index: Caffeine