Web Pro News also did another excellent interview with Google SEO Engineer Matt Cutts. The main topics discussed in the interview provided some more information on the launch of Google Caffeine as well as some recommendations on optimizing for website speed.

While Cutts didn’t state that faster page performance will be a new ranking factor for websites, he did mention that it is under consideration. Keep in mind that Google is always looking to improve the end-user experience and fast site performance definitely fits that bill. After all, nobody likes waiting around for pages to load.

Here is a short list of some of the tools that Cutts recommended for website speed evaluation:

• Google Code – Excellent resource for articles and tools on improving website performance.
• Web Page Test – Another tool for testing website performance.
• Google Closure Tools – Library of fast performing scripts and templates, as well as a compiler for crunching bloated code.

Improving site performance is not only recommended for the sake of your website visitors, but it can only help prepare your website for a future where Google may consider speed a ranking factor.

Many search engine professionals have had the opportunity to test and play with the Google Caffeine sandbox for the last several months. But the sandbox has closed shop, which usually is a sure-fire sign that a new launch is right around the corner.

In a video conducted with Matt Cutts back in August, WebProNews got some of the skinny on the new Caffeine changes.

The long and short of the interview is that Caffeine marks a major “rewrite of [Google's] entire indexing system.” Cutts stated that end-users should not to be alarmed since they won’t notice much of a change. Most of the updates are going into the product under the hood for “more flexibility and power” in handling content.

The content posing the biggest challenge, of course, is all of the real-time material and media generated in the social space. Google Caffeine will be better wired to handle all of the Web 2.0 content like blogs, tweets, and bookmarks.