Change in SERP Before Cache Version Updated?

[gouri]

If a change is made to a webpage, can you see changes in the SERP before the cache version with those changes is the cache version?

[Robert Charlton]

Yes. There appear to be several databases at work here, which I'll loosely call a ranking database, a serps database, and a cache database.

When I've monitored changes by changing capitalization in a page title, I've noticed that the ranking changes will appear anywhere from several hours to a day before the re-capitalized title appears in the serps.

It may then often be several days before the new cache appears.

All this of course depends on when in the spidering and various indexing cycles your revised page goes online.

Additionally, the "ranking database" I refer to above is actually a combination of several databases, how many I don't know, some of which are only recomputed periodically. So some factors may take longer to affect your rankings than others.

But yes, the cache not only may take a while to reflect your page change... but it also may be served up from a different server than the rest of the serps page.

[gouri]

Hi Robert,

Thank you for this excellent response. It is very informative.

I am going over it.

[gouri]

Have you seen a situation in which you start to see a rise in the rankings before the cache version has the changes that you have made, and after the cache version shows the version with the changes made, it moves a little more?