Google Boosts Its Servers with Caffeine

Although I am sure plenty of Google employees dope up on gallons of coffee per day, this is not about that kind of caffeine. Google announced on their blog that they are changing the way their servers index sites. As with anything related to Google searching, this is particularly relevant to webmasters who want their websites in the top of Google search results.

Without delving too deeply into the new technology, it is sufficient to note that Google’s indexing just got faster…a lot faster. They are currently refreshing their indexes 50 percent faster than their previous search index technology. The new tech is called Caffeine, and it has a more organic approach to indexing. While the old technology re-indexed the entire web in layers, Caffeine will index small portions more frequently.

I put the new system to the test, just to see how fast it actually was. Yesterday, I posted a new blog entry on one of my other sites. By the time I had saved it and headed over to Google, the new pages were already indexed. When you get things right on your website, this will be a good thing. When you get things wrong, be mindful that Google may index and even cache that page within minutes. Overall, however, it is a good thing, and website owners trying to get information out fast will appreciate it.

Source: Google
Photo: Flickr

Alternative Index Entries

Question: How do I configure my website to automatically go to a page other than index.***?

Answer: If your web hosting provider is hosting your site using Apache HTTP server, you can accomplish this very easily with an htaccess file. If you do not already have one, create a plain text file in your main web-accessible directory called .htaccess.

Next, use the DirectoryIndex directive followed by filenames you want to include. For example, if your server allows index.html index.htm and index.php but you want index.pl, enter on the first available line in the htaccess file:

DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.php index.pl

You can even specify a completely different word like “default.html” or “messageboard.php”. Just one simple line can go a long way in making your site feel the way you want it.

Photo Source: Flickr

What is directory listing?

Question: What is “directory listing” and how do I enable/disable it?

Answer: On an Apache HTTP Server, directory listing refers to a directory on the server that does not have a default index file. The file is usually called index.html, index.htm, index.php, etc. That is the default page that visitors will see when they go to a directory on your website, such as www.yourdomain.you/directory.

If there is no index file, Apache can do one of two things: 1. display an error, forbidding the visitor from seeing the contents of the directory or 2. display a list of the directory contents. Your web hosting provider determines the default setting for directory listing, but you can control it in each directory using an .htaccess file.

Create a new file called .htaccess or open your current one in the directory you want to configure. Then simply add this line to disable directory listing:

Options -Indexes

or this line to enable it:

Options +Indexes