Ever since Google started listing real-time search results about a month ago, there has been an almost endless stream of chatter about how businesses can take advantage of this new service and achieve effective search engine optimization through what’s likely to be a popular Internet search tool in the near future. Real time search offers users instant access to brand new blog posts and news items, which may make Google the place to go for breaking news.
And of course Google didn’t forget about Twitter, that other popular service that offers real-time updates. Google indexes Twitter messages in its real-time search results as well. So it’s only natural that there has also been a lot of discussion as to how one can use effective search engine optimization to have his or her tweets appear in Google’s real-time search results. Recently, Google’s Amit Singhai, the lead developer for the real-time search service, has provided some valuable insight as to how tweets are chosen and ranked.
It turns out that Google has developed a special PageRank system just for tweets. A Website with a lot of incoming links is a good, effective search engine optimization tactic that boosts PageRank. But the PageRank system for Twitter doesn’t track links—it tracks followers. An effective search engine optimization strategy for building the PageRank for a Twitter account hinges on gaining followers. The more followers a user has, the more authority Google will gives her. But also important is the quality of the followers. A user with many followers is judged as a better-quality follower then someone with just one, or none. Or as Singhal puts it:
“As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well.”
But that’s not all there is to know about achieving effective search engine optimization in Google’s real-time search results. There are other key factors that need to be considered. Here are the three most important:
- Hashtags. A hashtag is Twitter’s version of a tag, and similar to a keyword. There’s evidence that Google tracks hashtags and ranks tweets that contain hashtags over ones that don’t.
- Spam. It’s no surprise that hashtags can be used for spamming. Singhai indicated that Google looks at hashtagging behavior, and will reduce exposure for tweets that appear to simply be repeating popular hashtags and not adding any real value.
- Signal to noise ratio. Some topics or hashtags will be popular day in and day out. Take “Obama” for example. A tweet containing the president’s name could address a range of issues. In cases like that, Google will look at the any surrounding words, like “environment,” “economy,” or “Russia” to try and determine the tweets that should match certain search results, and which tweets are not spam.
Now that we know a little more about how Google tracks tweets, the question for those who want the most effective search engine optimization remains: is it worth it? Google’s real-time results are only temporary. Should you tweet with the goal of getting listed in Google’s real time results? Or could one’s effective search engine optimization tactics be better used elsewhere? Let us know what you think.
