Google’s Caffeine next-generation search infrastructure won’t be available until sometime in January, Google principal engineer Matt Cutts confirmed Nov. 10. Google is taking Caffeine live in one data center, where only a small percentage of Google’s users will be exposed to the new search infrastructure. In January, Caffeine will be rolled out in additional data centers to serve more Google searchers. Caffeine’s emphasis is on speedier Web crawling and indexing, a smart move with Microsoft Bing aggressively ramping its efforts and Yahoo integrating its search engine with its homepage.Google’s Caffeine next-generation search infrastructure won’t be available for the majority of searchers until sometime in January, its lead engineer confirmed Nov. 10.Search geeks and Google users were excited in August when Caffeine’s principal engineer Matt Cutts unveiled a developer sandbox for Caffeine, the company’s next-generation search infrastructure. The sandbox — a developer preview — is closed for now. Those who navigate to the site — http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ — will be redirected to this site and message: Based on the success we’ve seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.When this caused a mini wave in the blogosphere, Cutts added clarity in a post on his personal blog, noting that Google is taking Caffeine live in one data center, where only a small percentage of Google’s users will be exposed to the new search infrastructure. Cutts added: Caffeine will go live at one data center so that we can continue to collect data and improve the technology, but I don’t expect Caffeine to go live at additional data centers until after the holidays are over. Most searchers wouldn’t immediately notice any changes with Caffeine, but going slowly not only gives us time to collect feedback and improve, but will also minimize the stress on webmasters during the holidays.When a reader pressed Cutts on whether this meant no Caffeine until the New Year, Cutts responded: “I don’t think you’ll see Caffeine on multiple data centers before January.”Aesthetically, Caffeine was more or less the same to the untrained searcher’s eye. However, the under-the-hood speed was definitely a jolt to the Google search experience. Developers seem to like it, according to Cutts.Caffeine’s emphasis is on speedier Web crawling and indexing, a smart move with Microsoft Bing aggressively ramping its efforts and Yahoo integrating its search engine with its homepage.Microsoft and Yahoo also vowed to gang up on Google July 29 by striking a deal to have the Bing infrastructure power Yahoo search. That deal has not been consummated.

Google gets a caffeine boost

Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals can get a little bit closer to effective real-time search capabilities with the advent of Google’s new, speedier search engine, currently known as “Caffeine.”

Social media blog Mashable asserts that Caffeine “seems more capable of producing real-time results,” which would be an enormous bonus for search engine optimization (SEO) professionals, who have labored to turn the new-found search features of sites like Twitter into consistent drivers of traffic.

Caffeine is currently under development, and a test version is available for public use. AdWords are conspicuous by their absence, which means that search engine optimization (SEO) is the only form of search marketing available in the early stages of Caffeine’s availability.

Mashable also says that Caffeine is noticeably faster than the standard Google search engine, and points out that the changes will not be limited to a speed upgrade. Rather, Caffeine marks a near-complete overhaul of the world’s most popular search engine. The company has stated that it aims to make improvements to the search engine’s “size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness, and effectiveness.”