Google have unveiled a test version of their new search engine, nicknamed ‘Caffeine’ by developers due to its improved speed compared to the current Google search engine.
The new search engine, intended to replace Google once testing is finished, looks the same, only the algorithms have changed. Effectively, it is Google with a re-write of its indexing system. Google says it is the first step in improving the speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness of search results.
Is Google reacting to competition?
Google’s Caffeine follows a number of recent new competitors in the search engine world, including Microsoft’s Bing and ‘computational knowledge engine’ Wolfram Alpha.
Bing, in particular, is proving popular, having increased its market share by 45% since its launch in June. This has impacted Google, which lost 1.4% of its own share in the same time period, as well as Yahoo!, which has lost 0.63%, according to analysis of Yahoo! and Google trends by Efficient Frontier.
What does Matt Cutts Say?
Matt Cutts, a principal engineer at Google, denied Caffeine was a response to the recent rush of search engine competitors. He wrote on his blog: ‘I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months.
‘I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we've done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward. Nobody cares more about search than Google, and I don't think we'll ever stop trying to improve.’
A number of users have so far praised the high speed of Caffeine but criticised the increased prominence of Wikipedia pages for many searches.
