How Twitter will Change Search
Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager
Last month both Google and Bing announced they had reached deals with Twitter allowing them to display public Tweets as search results. Currently, Bing is showing live Twitter results only in the Bing Twitter search interface and Google will be integrating Tweets into search results over the next few months.
As Tweets and other real-time results, possibly Facebook postings, are rolled into search results, SEO tactics will need to evolve to keep up with search trends. Having a listing on the first page of search results will become increasingly difficult since pieces of the limited page real estate will be taken by Tweets. Also, having a presence in Twitter and other forms of social media will continue to be more and more important.
You may be thinking, “Great, it can’t be that hard to set up a Twitter account.” That won’t cut it. Bing states that they won’t index Tweets for longer than seven days. This means that having a steady stream of updated Twitter content is crucial for maintaining Twitter search listings. Also, in the case where two Tweets have very similar content, the higher search ranking will go to the person with the most Twitter followers, indicating the importance of building a Twitter community.
Real-time search is still in its infancy and tactics will continue to evolve as more real-time search features are rolled out. To stay on top of the latest real-time search news, check out the Bing Search Blog and the Official Google Blog.
This is wild. Will the Twitter search results also be driven by content in the 140 charachter messages?
It looks like the vast majority of Twitter search results are driven by content in the 140-character message. For example, searching “Avatar Twitter” will bring up a stream of real-time tweets discussing the latest James Cameron film. Searching by a person’s Twitter username also gives results provided you know which username to search – they aren’t always intuitive. Username searches will display the user’s tweets as well as re-tweets and tweets directed at them. Real-time Twitter results may not be the best place to find specific tweets or bits of information, but I think they will be useful in gauging consumer attitude toward specific brands or products.