Google’s much-anticipated, major update of how it indexes and ranks websites, known as the “Caffeine” update,  is scheduled to start rolling out after the holidays — and since the holidays are just about here, now seemed like a good time to speculate on what it may bring and how to adapt.

There is no question, as this Search Engine Land article makes clear, but that it’s going to be a huge update. Reading between the lines of Google’s comments, it’s my opinion that for SEO operatives,  it could turn out to be the Mother of all Google updates, eclipsing even the notorious “Florida” update of 2003.

Why do I think this?

• This isn’t just an update. It’s the rollout of a whole new architecture of Google Search.

• As Vanessa Fox noted in her Search Engine Land article, Caffeine appears to impact Google’s “crawling, indexing and ranking” behavior. Geez. What else is there?

• Google’s spam czar Matt Cutts is on record as saying the changes are “primarily in how we index”. Okay — well, that certainly could be the whole ball game, no?

• Everything Google does these days demonstrates their unwavering determination to dominate the web. Controlling spam and reining in SEO tactics (not the same thing, btw) are just a part of this, but a significant part.

That said, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about what the update is likely to contain that will directly impact SEO, and I’ve got three predictions to make.

1. Rewriting of dynamic urls to appear static will no longer just be discouraged. The new algorithm will penalize the ranking of sites that do it. Over a year ago, Google officially said “if you’re using URL rewriting, you could be doing harm rather than good.” And they went on to say “providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.” In other words, folks, they basically said “don’t do it”.  The SEO community got their collective knickers in a twist over this, and continue to rant about it. But I submit that the SEO community is miffed simply because url rewriting is something they have been doing for a long time, and it has become institutionalized. And like any institution, they like to hang on to the status quo. SEO’s got caught napping when it transpired that sculpting page rank wasn’t actually working, and hadn’t been for nearly a year — and no-one noticed. Don’t get caught napping on this issue. Why do I think Google will slam url rewriting in Caffeine? That’s easy — it’s a twofer. URL rewriting is interfering with how Google likes to crawl and index, and they can attack the problem by doing more than just discouraging it. They can penalize it. Last September’s announcement was just the warning shot. Caffeine will see the battle joined. Second, URL rewriting is an SEO tactic, and they can plug that little loophole at the same time. A classic two-for-one, and it fits the spirit of what the Caffeine update is all about (”Crawling, indexing and ranking”).

2. Blog comments, even those that are not “no-followed”, will lose whatever remaining SEO juice they have. Blog comments are such a glaring example of spam, and a major pollutant of the web, that it’s hard to imagine why Google hasn’t been more clear already that a link found in a blog comment will pass no juice or “signal” of any value.  I expect this to become very clear in the Caffeine update.

3. Crappy directories will get their final comeuppance. I know, crappy directories (you all know what I mean) aren’t supposed to give much SEO boost already. But you know what? They still do, to some extent, if a site gets enough links from them. I don’t think Google sees them as more than a minor irritant, but what the heck, if they’re doing a major update anyway — why not send a signal? So I anticipate some boat rocking in this area — maybe even some penalties for sites that exceed a certain portion of their links from that particular corner of the SEO underworld.

So, those are my three holiday predictions for what’s coming down the ‘pike with Caffeine. Love to hear what others are expecting, or what you think about my prognostications. Overall, I think and hope that Caffeine will do good things both for users and for SEO. What’s good for users is good, long-term, for the SEO industry. The interests of users and the industry are not misaligned. If anything, they should be on the same page. In 2010, maybe they will be a bit more so.