San Francisco — Just as Microsoft and Yahoo recently announced a new search deal, now Google counters with a bang unveiling a new search architecture in an attempt to boost its existing services. In a blog post, the web giant today released a preview of its revived search engine on the Google Webmaster Central Blog.
In a post, Google said the preview of the new architecture, which can be tested here — in order to gather feedback. Google says “the new infrastructure resides “under the hood” of its search engine, which means that it would not be immediately viewable to most users, but with a difference in search results,” says Google on the company’s blog.
Google claims the project is “is the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions,” a joint post from engineers Matt Cutts and Sitaram Iyer.
“Web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we are opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback,” the post read.
In other words, the company intends to crawl the web, index it well, and deliver fast, relevant results — something it has always planned to do. After a number of searches, it is clear Caffeine offers increased results in a shorter time-frame; however, how results appear remains a mystery.
“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search,” said a post on the blog.
Initial tests by social media blog Mashable found the new engine was faster and returned different results from the current Google Search.
“While you would not see too many differences immediately, let us assure you: it is a completely upgraded Google search,” it said.
“This search is not only faster, but in some instances in our few tests, seems more capable of producing real-time results.”
The initial setup of results appears the same — but searching for the similar query in the preview of the new architecture and in Google’s standard search engine brings up a somewhat different order of results.
The search giant also underlined that it is all still a work in progress, adding that some “parts of this system are not completely finished yet.”
From a consumer point of view, Caffeine is similar to standard Google search save for shaving off a few precious half seconds. But for search engine marketers, the new indexing system spells another hurdle to their jobs. While it is likely that Google will have at least a month head start in outrunning them, in the past savvy keyword specialists have always managed to make their mark.
To help improve Caffeine, search in the sandbox and offer your feedback at the Google Webmaster Central blog.
“Right now, we only want feedback on the differences between Google’s current search results and our new system. We are also interested in higher-level feedback (“These types of sites seem to rank better or worse in the new system”) in addition to “This specific site should or should not rank for this query.” Engineers will be reading the feedback, but we would not have the cycles to send replies,” the company says on the blog.
To give feedback, click the link at the bottom that says, “Dissatisfied? Help us improve.” When you give your feedback, include the word “caffeine” at some point in the text box before submitting.
Googler Matt Cutts says that the move is not in response to recent search engine developments from Wolfram Alpha or even more recent moves by Facebook, but merely on the “focus [of] relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward.”
The new search is available to all web users however currently won’t work on mobiles or international versions of the website like Google.co.uk.
Google Search preview – http://www2.sandbox.google.com/