For those of you who may be living under a rock, Google announced the new Caffeine sandbox project not long after the Bing/Yahoo! partnership formed (talk about stealing their thunder!). Caffeine is basically a completely new version of Googles search engine.

Here is just some the speculation that got around on Twitter:

starting to see some* Caffeine results go to live G, @gregboser you seeing any of the same?

Mr Google: Did you slip a little caffeine into the live environment and tell not us?

The answer: NO. Googles main man, Matt Cutts, confirmed that there has been rollout of Caffeine yet. This got me thinking, however, what effect Caffeine will have on PPC campaigns.

I did a little research and discovered that the folks over at Search Engine Land had the same thought. So I would like to share with you their suggestions:

As a PPC manager, what should I do?
Thankfully for PPC managers the upcoming update should only affect the organic listings and will not directly alter cost-per-clicks in anyway. This however does not mean that PPC managers should ignore the Caffeine Update.

Monitor your SERP positions closely
No one is 100% sure how the latest update will shakeout, so your best bet is to run a position report on key terms and watch for any fluctuations. If youve shied away from bidding on keywords (because youve felt that your SEO visibility is sufficient) you may want to start supplementing your organic efforts with PPC listings.

Have you heard anything more about the Caffeine rollout? Feel free to share your news below. We will keep you posted on any more news we hear on the grape vine.

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