Many you may be aware of the newest addition to Google Search. The inclusion of “tweets” from Twitter. This is potentially a game changing new feature for Google, as it adds a real-time level to their search results. Currently as you can see in the screenshot below, after making a Google search query you have to then click on the show options icon followed by the menu item called “Latest”. This will then give you the latest crawled information as well as “tweets” from Twitter.

You will also notice that the Twitter updates continue to flow in unless you specify them not to. This functionality is very similar to your Twitter stream in your Twitter account. I have some thoughts on this new feature from Google that I want to share with you, and see what you think about it.

Could These “Tweets” Eventually Affect Your Page Rankings?

I’ve been playing with the HTTP-on-examine-response, particularly with a new add-on for Firefox called the Verify Redirect plug-in. Basically it gives me the ability to hover over a shortened URL and see where it is redirecting me to. Could Google do this? If so, they could attribute the original link that the shortened URL is pointing too, thus applying some level of ranking to a link.

Think about this for a second. Google begins importing “tweets” from Twitter into its “Latest” results. Those “tweets” contain shortened URL’s which redirect to pages of content. This means that Google can track how many “tweets” are linking to a specific blog post or page, thus assuming the popularity of that post or page and ranking it higher in their search results.

Running a Test

I recommend taking a few minutes and running some tests to see if your tweets show up in the Google search results. It seems to be pretty difficult at this point to figure out how to ensure your tweets are displayed. So far some of my tweets are displayed, and some are not. I’d be interested to hear from you guys what you think Google uses to influence what tweets are shown and which are not.

The Significance of All This

Real-time search is something that could forever change the web as we know it. I would predict that you can expect many more advances in the coming months involving the integration between Twitter and Google Search. Google knows that it needs to provide real-time search. Twitter has all the data to make it happen. And us as the users would only benefit from relevant, highly targeted Tweet content.