Google Search: Caffeine and Decaf

I was quite interested in knowing more about Google Caffeine after reading the post by Akshay a couple of days ago. So looked up some more details to see how it compares with the Google Search Engine we are using at the moment. The new search engine which is still “work in progress ” is codenamed Caffiene and hence the current Goggle search can aptly to be nicknamed Decaf.

Came across a test and its conclusion by 360i on Search Engine Watch and the results were quite interesting.

10 major retail brand names (keywords)
10 retail head terms (single keywords)
10 retail torso terms (two-word phrases)
10 retail long-tail phrases (four-word phrases)

They came up with the following conclusions:

Domains and rankings will fluctuate.
The index size of single keyword search relevance will increase, meaning more competition.
Long-tail becomes more relevant.
Caffeine is faster. You’ll get results (SERPs) in half the time, on average.
Universal (aka Blended) results will increase
Social media listings will increase, primarily due to a lift in YouTube listings.

My Comparative Ego Test of both the Engines

I decided to do some testing myself. Nowhere as comprehensive as Search Engine Watch but a lot more fun I guess. 🙂

I did a search on both the search engines with my own name and there were some interesting minor differences. The screen-shot on the left is with the normal Google.com search engine and the screen-shot below is that by using Google Caffeine.

On Google Decaf I found after I typed in and got the results, the 3rd entry (circled in red) is incorrect. It wasnt even my name. When I ran the same search on Google Caffeine the same incorrect result was not the 3rd entry but the 14th which meant the next page. That’s pretty good because someone using a search engine might not really end up checking beyond the first page.

Another difference I got with the Caffeine search was it did not give out results on my Facebook or Linked In profiles as much as the Google search engine.

On the other hand the 2nd search result returned by Google Caffeine was a link to a friend’s facebook profile but not mine. Obviously my name was in this friends list and hence it must have showed up. But thats the only negative point I can think about when it comes to Google Caffeine.

Over all I prefer Google Caffeine to the current Google search engine because the top 10 results inculded links to my facbook, twitter, Linked In profile pages. Caffeine also includes a link to my blog which is not so well know. So that makes me happy 😛

So how about carrying out this test for yourselves and telling me about it in the comments. For me caffeine is pretty cool, looks like Google which has made geeks all over the world look cool is going to make them look cooler!

Links: 360i Search Engine Watch| Google Caffeine | Google.com