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So, what is up with the much awaited Caffeine?

Back in November 11th I had blogged about Matt Cutts’s announcement that Caffeine won’t be launched until “after the holidays”. At the time, Matt said Google decided to wait with the launch of their highly acclaimed new algorithm update out of consideration for webmasters. The idea was to keep the search results stable over the high season of shopping time.

It didn’t really make sense to me back then. In my post, I said that if Google had a better algorithm, producing better and faster results for end users, they should not avoid launching out of consideration for webmasters. After all, there’s only so much web traffic and one webmaster’s loss is another’s gain.

Well, it’s been over two months now. And almost two weeks into 2010 and still no sign of Caffeine.

In Israel, with major holidays coming up twice a year, the term “after the holidays” takes on a special meaning. “After the holidays” being the ultimate excuse for all those things you plan on postponing endlessly and forever.

No, I don’t think Google is going to postpone the rollover forever. I do wonder what’s making them wait so long though. Is it the recent China business? or were issues with caffeine itself the real reason behind the “after the holidays” delay?

The next BIG Google algorithm update one is named after a very much abused substance (legal, of course, imagine if they were to name this one cocaine instead?)

Much like the real stuff, it’s been driving some web publishers up the wall, especially those who are currently ranked high on the SERP’s for good keywords, waiting to cash on their good positions during the Holidays shopping season.

Well, they can now relax, as Google’s Matt Cutts officially announced that Caffeine won’t be implemented until after the Holidays.

Isn’t it amazing just how powerful Google has become? It is a search engine after all. As such, it  was supposed to reflect what’s hot and what’s not on the web. Instead, we see once again how Google landscapes web traffic patterns rather than merely tracking them.

Not that there is much to be done about that, of course, but such “benevolent” moves by Google towards webmasters do bother me. As a surfer, I don’t want Google to give me what it considers to be “not as useful” results just out of consideration for webmasters. If you think Caffeine generates better search results, by all means, bring it on. Maybe it’s the hundreds of millions of customers you should be considering, not the thousands of merchants?

As a webmaster too, actually. You may be helping some websites, but by definition that means you’re taking traffic away from someone else. People will shop online this year – the question is which sites will be delivered by Google’s top search results to win the jackpot.

Disclaimer: I have dozens of websites and no, I haven’t tested them on the Caffeine sandbox, so I don’t know if I will be making less money or more after the roll out.