A significant proportion of businesses have yet to optimise their websites to take advantage of the Google Caffeine update, specifically with regard to updated, new or unique website content, properly and effectively constructed meta tags and quality outbound links related to their site's theme.

Researchers also uncovered trends towards poorly formatted internal linking, no social media involvement or bookmark-sharing icons where applicable and serious issues with page/site download times.

The goal of Google Caffeine is to enhance the user search experience by providing more accurate and relevant results pages, combined with a real-time search feature.

Scott Moir says 85 per cent of firms studied by his SEO research team were not optimised to benefit from the update to Google's search architecture.

"It's obvious that businesses and individuals that depend on the internet for their prosperity have yet to take advantage of the multitude of opportunities that Caffeine presents," he comments. "Opportunities that, if properly applied, will immediately help them gain a marketing advantage over their competition."

Caffeine has been summed up by experts as "an algorithmic change" focusing on more real-time search results and incorporating social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Greater prominence is therefore given to news and real-time information like social media updates and online video.

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