The “Bigdaddy” update announced by Google is no ordinary update. This major change to the Google systems will have an impact on the ranking of web pages in the Google index. Basically Google are changing the way their server and network infrastructure works. Google have given this update the name “Bigdaddy”.
The update is set to change the way Google examine and sort web pages. The data Google hold is spread across multiple data centres with different IP addresses. These servers are used to answer search queries and share the indexing workload. The new code will be live during February and March according to Google’s search engineer Matt Cutts.
One of the focuses of the code and infrastructure update is the need to handle potential spam issues such as 302 redirects. More efficient handling of 302s (Canonical URLs) will help alleviate the levels of spam created by portal and doorway pages. Legitimate redirects should be Ok. This is important to Google as the reduction in spam will mean they can concentrate on developing more advanced algorithms and larger high quality databases.
In addition or more in connection with the infrastucture changes is the development of a new search engine spider based on the Mozilla browser. Google are very keen to exploit this new technology to index more varied content types. It’s possible that the new spider may be able to index links within images, Javascripts and Flash files.
How will Bigdaddy affect my rankings?
We’re not sure how this update will affect our customers rankings or yours, but we will be monitoring the results very closely over the next few weeks and months.
Some of the Google data centres that use Bigdaddy are already online and you can test them right now! Go to 66.249.93.104. In fact Google want your feedback. Try it and leave your comments by clicking the “Dissatisfied? Help us improve” link at the bottom of the results page. You’ll then need to put the keyword bigdaddy in so Google know the feedback is about the new data centre.
