This is a
*very* interesting move by Google. It seems the Firefox developers that Google hired a while back was for this project, not for the supposed Google Browser.
The first thing on most people's minds is "how the hell does this work"? Here is Google's answer:
- Sending your page requests through Google machines dedicated to handling Google Web Accelerator traffic.
-- How does that speed it up?... The content still needs to be sent to your computer bit by bit…
- Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.
-- I think it’s called a proxy sever… My proxy server already does that. My browser does caching too.
- Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it.
-- I'd like to know how...
- Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.
-- Firefox does this already - it prefetch's Google search results. I'm not too keen on prefetching other pages, especially in SA where we pay per meg.
-Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays.
-- Ummm… HOW?
- Compressing data before sending it to your computer.
-- Yes, once again, my fancy browser does that for me… and has been since the early 90’s…
Regardless of HOW this actually works, people are claiming that is it actually very effective. We all know Google hires the geniuses of the world, so it's quite possible it actually does make webpages load a little bit faster. However, they claim it is meant for broadband connections - whoever needs their pages sped up on 1Mbit DSL needs to serious learn some patience....
Now, the FAR MORE INTERESTING thing is this: Google will now not only know what sites link to your site, but
how many people are actually looking at your site everyday. Since this WebAccelerator is simply a global proxy, they will know what everyone is looking at!
Some guy at SlashDot said; "Google will know your email address, the contents of your email, your search behaviour, and now the pages you look at. What's next? Well, they could deliver you customised content to influence your opinions on the world".
Conspiracy theories aside, this could have very powerful implications for Google's search engine and its relevancy. I don't think Google is as maniacal as the extremist would like to think. I think they'd use this opportunity to simple improve the relevancy of their results, meaning that advertisers will pay more for keywords on Google AdWords, meaning Google make more money.
Anti-Cloaking
The search industry has long been plagued by Search Engine Optimisation tricks like page cloaking (delivering optimised page to the search engine spiders, but normal pages to human visitors, by detecting if a browser or a spider is requesting the page). By using the content that goes through the WebAccelerator proxy, Google could compare the results it gets back from its spiders for a particular url, and compare it to the result in the proxy cache. If they are dissimilar, Google can blacklist the page. This will stop the blackhat SEO guys in their tracks.
Hit-Counting:
Google will know know who is actually visiting sites every day. Before, they based their rankings on the keyword density in the page, meta keywords, and a number of other things, but mainly on the number of sites linking to your site. The higher the rank of the site that links to you, the better the value of that link. Now, they will be able to add another very important variable to the mix: how many people actually visit your site, for how long, how often they come back, etc.
Some people may argue that the Google Toolbar has always tracked your web usage - but lets be honest, only a small minority of people used the Google Toolbar, and the usage tracking was an optional feature that was activated only if you chose the "Advanced Featured" install option, which most people didn't. By providing a useful service - such as speeding up your net surfing for free - with the convenient side-effect of being able to track everything you do on the web, Google will likely capture a FAR greater segment of the internet market with the WebAccelerator.
I think the new generation of search has arrived, and I doubt Microsoft even saw it coming.
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