Last month, Google started to display real-time results on the search engine result pages.
How do real-time results look like?
The real-time result box is displayed for search terms that are currently discussed on social network sites. To provide real-time results, Google started partnerships with Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca and Twitter:
Google's Real Time Search Results
How to get in Google’s real-time results
Google hasn’t revealed how the real-time results are chosen but there are some things that seem to have an effect. If you want to see your tweets in Google’s real-time results, you should consider the following:
- Google analyzes the text used in the blog post, tweet, etc. to determine the quality of the post. If a post looks like spam, it won’t be chosen for the real-time results.
- Google seems to create profiles of users that are re-tweeted more often than other users. If a Twitter user has many high-authority followers, it’s more likely that the tweets will appear in the real-time results.
- Google wants to identify spammers by the quality of their followers and the quality of their messages.
The collected information will be used to calculate an “Update Rank” for each contributing user.
How much time should you invest to get in Google’s real-time results?
The problem with Google’s real-time results is that they do not appear for all search terms and that each result is quickly replaced by another result.
For that reason, you cannot get lasting results in Google’s real-time results. It is much better to invest your time in getting listed in Google’s regular search results. A listing in Google’s regular top 10 results will bring many more targeted visitors to your website than a listing in the real-time results.
Google’s real-time results are a nice addition to Google’s portfolio. However, they are also problematic. Will high authority posters sell links in their tweets? How will Google find out if a posted message is true? For example, Google real-time results recently reported the death of actress Natalie Portman although the story was not true.
Add they keywords for which you want to be found in a natural way to your social media posts. Do not try to cheat the system. Try to get in Google’s results regular top 10 results and offer something interesting on your website so that other people talk and tweet about your website.
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more great content just like it.
