Google's search engine functionality is changing, and the technology behind that change is being called "Caffeine". Its "real time search" results include social networking site results, and this is causing businesses to reevaluate their social networking web development projects and policies.

Caffeine, which was announced by Google in 2009 and implemented in January, 2010; includes improvements that are not immediately noticeable by web surfers, (except for the increased speed of returned search result listings) but the impact on website rankings has been anticipated and is already causing some sites to suffer ranking losses, while others have used the changes to improve their search engine ranking through the use of social networking services, which are now included in Google's real time search results.
For web site owners, it is now very important, to fully engage your web site in social media networking if you are at all concerned about your page’s ranking in Google.

Profile updates, blogs and status updates from the leading social networks such as MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo! Answers and Facebook are now appearing in Google's real time results.  With Caffeine, linking is playing a more important role. Not just any links, but links from sites or users that have a valued reputation, similar to Google's PageRank technology.

Aside from the real time search technologies of Google's Caffeine, site loading time is of premium concern. Slow loading RSS feeds, widgets, Flash applications and images may bring your site down a notch, or 200 notches, as it were. Now is the time to re-evaluate their use on your site, at least on important pages, as well as increasing your site or company's presence and contributions on social networking sites, or your search engine rankings may suffer as a result.