What’s The Hold Up With The Google Caffeine Index?

About 6 months ago, the Google Caffeine public preview went live. In November, they took the Caffeine preview offline and since then, webmasters have been on their toes worried about when Caffeine will go live. We had rumor after rumor with speculation that it was live, as recently as a week ago – but each time, they were false alerts.

The question people are now asking in the long WebmasterWorldthread is where is it already? What is the hold up? A good question. For all I know, it may go live a minute after I post this and make me just look bad. But let me quote you one WebmasterWorld member:

Do you remember waaaay back in late Nov./early Dec when MC told the world that Caffeine was being delayed to “save stress on webmasters before the holiday” and it would be rolled out soon afterwards?

Do you remember what I said was the reason back then?

So here’s the question for you, IF as MC said Caffeine was “ready” a month and half ago, where is it now?!

We’re halfway done with January…what’s the hold up?

A solid question and a question that can be asked. Google does not have to answer but it is a good question. Are there major issues with Caffeine? Are there underlying flaws that will prevent what we know Caffeine to be to be launched? Can the failure of such a launch make Google look somewhat inferior to Microsoft Bing?

All questions that Google’s executives and PR team would hate to have to answer. But as time goes on, these questions will begin to be asked.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.


About 6 months ago, the Google Caffeine public preview went live. In November, they took the Caffeine preview offline and since then, webmasters have been on their toes worried about when Caffeine will go live. We had rumor after rumor with speculation that it was live, as recently as a week ago – but each time, they were false alerts.

The question people are now asking in the long WebmasterWorldthread is where is it already? What is the hold up? A good question. For all I know, it may go live a minute after I post this and make me just look bad. But let me quote you one WebmasterWorld member:

Do you remember waaaay back in late Nov./early Dec when MC told the world that Caffeine was being delayed to “save stress on webmasters before the holiday” and it would be rolled out soon afterwards?

Do you remember what I said was the reason back then?

So here’s the question for you, IF as MC said Caffeine was “ready” a month and half ago, where is it now?!

We’re halfway done with January…what’s the hold up?

A solid question and a question that can be asked. Google does not have to answer but it is a good question. Are there major issues with Caffeine? Are there underlying flaws that will prevent what we know Caffeine to be to be launched? Can the failure of such a launch make Google look somewhat inferior to Microsoft Bing?

All questions that Google’s executives and PR team would hate to have to answer. But as time goes on, these questions will begin to be asked.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.



Bing Search Shopping Guides

Ever do a search on Bing and see shopping results come up, where one of the links are to a “guides” area? For example, search for [buy coffee maker] and you will see the following results:

Bing Guides

There are two “guides” listed here for this query. The first goes to How Stuff Works and the second goes to <a href="http://pages.ebay.com/buy/guides/coffee-makers-espresso-machines-buying-guide/index.html"?eBay.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks, how does one get to be placed in these guides. It is a good question, I am not sure. Is it purely algorithmic? Is it from a set database of guides only? I suspect these are trusted sites that are pre-coded to be considered “guides” and thus be listed for matching queries in Bing.

If you know anything more about these Bing shopping guides, let us know.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.


Ever do a search on Bing and see shopping results come up, where one of the links are to a “guides” area? For example, search for [buy coffee maker] and you will see the following results:

Bing Guides

There are two “guides” listed here for this query. The first goes to How Stuff Works and the second goes to .

A WebmasterWorld thread asks, how does one get to be placed in these guides. It is a good question, I am not sure. Is it purely algorithmic? Is it from a set database of guides only? I suspect these are trusted sites that are pre-coded to be considered “guides” and thus be listed for matching queries in Bing.

If you know anything more about these Bing shopping guides, let us know.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.



Will You Use the Google URL Shortener Goo.gl?

I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but Google has launched its own URL shortener service called Goo.gl. Obviously, there are some pros and cons to this type of service.

One drawback that I see is that the service is only available through the Google Toolbar and Feedburner. I can’t shorten an URL directly [...]

I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but Google has launched its own URL shortener service called Goo.gl. Obviously, there are some pros and cons to this type of service.

One drawback that I see is that the service is only available through the Google Toolbar and Feedburner. I can’t shorten an URL directly like I can with other services like Tinyurl and Bit.ly. Secondly, Bit.ly offers tracking of your short URLs; Goo.gl does not (that I see). It would be fantastic if Goo.gl was integrated into Google Analytics and provided nice robust tracking for links shortened and used on social site such as Twitter and Facebook. Also, it would be great if these types of shortened links generated by Goo.gl also showed up as non re-direct links in Google webmaster tools. Just imagine, that many more shortened links showing up to help your inbound link building efforts.

An obvious benefit is that it is owned by Google. That means the service likely won’t go away. There is some stability there. But this can also be seen as a drawback. Will Google at some point decide to force all webmasters to use the URL shortening service? Good question from Andy Beal.

And another drawback, how many non-core services does Google offer that actually go somewhere? Over the years Google has had some great services offered to customers (all in beta of course!) and many of them quietly lasted and even more of them shut down and are no longer available.

Another potential issue that comes to mind is that there are already a ton of URL shorteners on the market right now. What does Goo.gl offer that the others don’t? Besides direct shortening from its toolbar and Feedburner? And besides it displays and uses the Google brand? Gee, I’m counting more drawbacks than benefits. Have you done the math on Goo.gl? Time will really tell on this one if Goo.gl will have long term staying power and user acceptance.

Seth Godin: Sliced Bread

Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers

Anthony Parinello: Your Price is Too High