Google gives search a caffeine injection with new release

Caffeine has been in development for several months, the company said, described as "next-generation architecture for Google's web search".

Google said its the first step in a process that will "push the envelope" on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and "other dimensions".

Google has invited web users to test Caffeine and give feedback before a full public debut.

The announcement comes on the same day Facebook acquired FriendFeed and finally rolled out it's real-time search platform, which it had been working on for a couple of months.

Users can now search Facebook to find breaking news, bringing in results from friends' status updates, conversations, photos, links and video -- all powered by Microsoft's Bing.

Previously, users were only able to search through profiles and groups in a clumsy, off-putting interface.

Much of the changes in Caffeine's new infrastructure sits "under the hood" of Google's search engine, the company said, which means that most users won't notice a difference in search results.

A quick test shows that results are indexed faster than with Google's primary search engine, although just fractions of a second quicker, while thousands of more results are often returned.

Caffeine means that marketers and SEO experts will have a new range of search algorithms to work with.

Google said it had been working on Caffeine for many months, so is unlikely as simply a market reaction to the launch of Microsoft's Bing.

Martin McNulty, director of search marketing specialist, Trafficbroker, said: "Caffeine may be 'under the hood' but with this noticeable injection of speed it won't remain under the radar for long.

"As for accuracy, it's hard to say at this early stage but Google is clearly upping its game by including real-time results and more breaking news, as well as updates from the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

"The launch of Bing has been a good thing, although unfortunately more for Google than Bing if the level of innovation continues at this frantic pace.

Google is still very much in the driving seat and is still setting the pace."

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