Google Web Accelerator

Earlier this month, Google introduced the Google Web Accelerator, a tool that speeds up the user's web surfing experience by:

• Sending page requests through Google servers dedicated to handling Google Web Accelerator traffic.


• Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.


• Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it.


• Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.


• Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays.


• Compressing data before sending it to your computer.

By default, the web accelerator is supposed to automatically check for new pages, and not show the stored copies - however, I've found that not to be the case.

For instance, yesterday, I was making changes in the website I keep in my webmaster world profile, www.patrick.com.mx, and I kept uploading my CSS file and refreshing the page to see changes, and I wouldn't see it. I kept uploading and refreshing, finally remembering that the Web Accelerator was active. As soon as I stopped it, of course, the changes were shown instantly.

Now, strangely enough, if I visit the site today, with the accelerator on, it shows the cached version of the site, not the new template. If I refresh, the new version will snap into place.

Makes me wonder how many sites I've surfed are actually staler versions based on the Google cache.

A bug that has arisen is that the web accelerator has gotten confused as to whose session belongs to whom.

As reported on Threadwatch and elsewhere, forum users with WA suddenly found themselves in other peoples' accounts. This actually happened to me for an instant when I went to the Google home page, and it announced that I was signed in to Google's services as "pliebrand@imaxa.com". Just out of curiousity, I attempted to go to "my account", and it requested that I sign in. This was during the first few hours of the accelerator, and it hasn't happened again, so perhaps they've ironed these bugs out.

However WA breaks geotargeting. I live in Mexico, and have several adwords campaigns that are restricted to US only - yet with the Accelerator on, suddenly I see my adwords in the serps. I assume it is doing the same for Adsense ads. Not very fair for advertisers.

Of course the much larger issue is what is Google gaining by sending all this traffic through their own servers?

Human usage metrics. Far more accurate than the toolbar. This tool literally keeps track of every move you make, even tells Google how their competitors' search results are performing.

Could the Web Accelerator be part of Google's TrustRank? Very likely. Google loves automation, and what better way to judge the value of sites ranking in their SERPs than having the usage data of thousands of users on a 24 hour basis.

Interesting times ahead.