Inside Caffeine: Google's shot in the arm for search results

The biggest search revamp in years gets underway

By Tom Krazit

Published: 12 August 2009 10:39 BST

One of the largest behind-the-scenes updates to Google's search technology in three years is under way, as the company reworks its computing muscle.

On Monday evening, Google quietly began soliciting feedback for Caffeine, a new system for web searches that is being tested completely separately from the live search results currently found through Google.com.

Google makes almost constant changes to its search algorithms and infrastructure, but it hasn't made an update of this magnitude since 2006, said Matt Cutts, a principal engineer at Google who is considered one of the driving forces behind its approach to search.
Think of Caffeine as a redeployment of the computing network that Google uses to connect searchers and results. "We want to make a system that is more robust, that can do more - and do more faster," Cutts said.

More details:
http://software.silicon.com/applications/0...39484015,00.htm