NEWS JUST IN: GOOGLE CAFFEINATES WATER SUPPLY IN SEARCH ENGINE TOTAL WAR.
Well, not quite. Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s new Bing, Google has unveiled its fancy pants new search engine version, codename: Caffeine.

On the Google Webmaster Central blog, they’ve said they really want some feedback.

Google have removed AdWords from this test version to allow the public greater flexibility in testing it out; plus, Google get to use the public as testers, reviewers and critics. You can even click a “Help us improve” link at the bottom of their search engine results.

As you can probably guess from the codename, Google Caffeine is all about speed, faster reactions and heart palpitations. Not only does it work faster (though, to be honest, the old Google with its, “I’ve found 1,200,000 results in 0.005seconds” was impressive enough for me!), but it is more up-to-the-minute, creeping closer to that holy grail of Search Engines – Real Time search. Tests have shown that some search results seem to be indexed as close as 25 minutes ago. That’s pretty good, by any standard.

So what are the first impressions of Google Caffeine?

Comprehensiveness.
Well, this is tricky. Google does seem to be doing a better job at indexing things such as Twitter posts and other rapidly moving data, but it’s still not perfect. After comparing some “site:” searches, sometimes Google has more sites indexed, whereas sometimes Google Caffeine does. As there is no point of reference to benchmark this, it seems that it can be difficult to tell whether or not Caffeine is missing the point entirely, or is in actual fact just displaying more relevant results when it can, and filtering out rubbish results in other times. However, it does seem as if Google Caffeine is getting better at filtering out fake websites, for example, online pharmacies. I imagine this is because it’s getting better at finding fake websites and de-indexing.

Relevance.
So can this relevancy be checked? I carried out some local searches also some very specific searches on niche topics such as Jewellery and Outdoor supplies. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be much difference when looking at the actual content. Boo. Though, once again, I have to ask – Google usually does a good job at providing relevant results for my searches, so it’s unlikely to be able to provide even better results without some sort of planet-wide mind enslavement ray that would make Skynet weep. Still, that’s scheduled for release in 2014 from the Googleplex, so not too long to wait.

Speed..
It does indeed seem to be faster, so that’s something. Or at least, according to Google’s millisecond-accurate report. I’ll take their word for it, but it’s not going to have a dramatic impact on my life.

Bing VS Google Caffeine.
Overall, I’d say this Caffeine is faster. However, with regards to which search engine to choose – with the level of sophistication that these search engines are displaying now, it’s going to come down to a personal preference. I’m not seeing anything particular outstanding or dire in either, so unless that changes in the near future, you can pretty much take your pick for day to day searches.

What do you think? Are you going to switch to Bing, or stick with Google? Comment and let us know!